Megan Doudney holds daughter Nedahlia as she panhandles on Market Street. “I’m not harming her in any way.” Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle
Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle: Homeless mom panhandles on Market Street with newborn baby
San Franciscans know they’ll see all walks of life along Market Street, but a new fixture on the colorful thoroughfare has shocked even the most hardened city dwellers: a 6-week-old, homeless baby girl.
All day long, Megan Doudney, 34, sits on the sidewalk near the Four Seasons Hotel between Third and Fourth streets with little Nedahlia in her arms and a sign reading, “Anything helps.” The sight is alarming, even in this city where just about anything goes.
Pedestrians walking past do double takes, exclaiming, “Oh my God!” or “She has a baby!” But they’re not on some hidden-camera show. This is very much real life.
Several people have called 911, including when another homeless person’s menacing dog got in the baby’s face. Police have responded numerous times, and child welfare workers from the Human Services Agency have investigated whether the baby should be removed from Doudney. At first blush, it seems obvious that’s the right answer, but so far, the city is throwing up its hands. Apparently, the newborn is healthy and developing well, and isn’t going anywhere.
“I’m not harming her in any way,” Doudney told me as we chatted on the sidewalk the other day.
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WNU editor: I saw images like this one waaaayyyy too many times in Russia in the 1990s. Homeless and desperate girls in their early teens begging for money in front of the doors at the GUM shopping mall beside Red Square is an image that I will never forget.
In regards to San Francisco .... my brother lives in the Bay Area and I go see him once every year or two. San Francisco has definitely declined in the 20 years that I have been going there. The homes may be super expensive .... but the homeless problem is exploding.
I see this tactic down here in San Diego, admittedly not a new born, but a toddler in a stroller with mom and dad trading off wandering down the median collecting pretty good money. It must be the good weather, because they just keep flooding in with no end in sight...
ReplyDeleteIn the right place, at the right time, with the right angle, begging pay's better than minimum wage in most places,
DeletePlus, no taxes,
But then again, with no home, it's almost impossible to get a job.
Nowaday's, in places like SF/Toronto/YVR/London etc, that have been gentrified beyond belief, there's lot's of peple working two jobs and living in their car.
I bought my first house in YVR for $68k, when I was earning $36k.
A decade and a half later, bought my last house in YVR for $380k, at a time when after 15 years of constant raises and promotions, I was earning $58k,
Two years ago, my brother bought his second house in YVR, for just shy of $1million.
http://www.crackshackormansion.com
When I entered the workforce, the median difference between a "worker" and a CEO was 4X, now it's 438X.
To buy a house like you did most have been an incredible investment. Unfortunately I am younger so I have extreme debts to pay fr my house.
DeleteI usually read your comments Jay and I don't agree with them at all. But your observations on house prices are bang on. Compared to wages they have shot up and it is the cause of major problems. The workers wages have virtually no value anymore. In such a short time they have devalued money and labour so much! I look back and think how great it must have been to work and earn a decent enough living to buy the basic living needs easily.
DeleteLow interest rates driving insane credit levels, with a welfare explosion (which devalues labour because it is basically free money) and mass immigration (which drives down wages) has been a triple whammy on the middle class and working folk.
For you guys who don't travel the world much. .this is not unique to the US -at all-. Look to China and Shanghai. .Hong Kong. .Singapore. .san Francisco. .Berlin. ..London is another great example. .it is happening everywhere and we all learned in school it would happen. .I learned it 10-15 years ago and it happened exactly as predicted. .the widening gap between the rich and poor, the very highly trained/educated and the less educated/trained .. especially visible in the new technocrat society forming. .
ReplyDeletePlus it's a meat grinder for everyone who studies in hopes to become part of the elite and then ends up with student debt and no houses to afford
This will only continue. .we see a continued rise of the super rich, and the erosion of the middle class
Ultimately it can't go on like this. .expect the super rich to have appeasement programs to keep the poor masses happy enough so they don't rebel. .free Internet.. Basic free living income.. etc. .
you are so right, Anon...demographics: young moving to citiesl worldwide. housing: very expensiv e and young renting and no longer buying. Gentrification. growing wage gap..middle class continues to decline as income does not keep up with costs, plus college loans.
ReplyDeletein sum: nothing being seriously offered by Right or Left at this point.
@unknown: The welfare don't devalues salaries. The opposite. When we have good welfare, salaries was also good. Today bad welfare, bad salaries, and to face the fall of public services many are forced to go with private (pensions, healthcare, school, etc.) more expensive and with private financing (= debt), which is practically put their wages on the hands of brokers. So the people are split between home and life.
ReplyDeleteI personally never seen mothers of my city begging on the streets. Until last year.
Of course welfare devalues wages. If you earn £10 an hour working and the government gives a bum £10 an hour for not working at all then this makes an hours labour worthless because you might as well quit and go on benefits. Also, the bum can compete for goods and services the same as the worker, further devaluing his bang for his buck. Effectively the £10 becomes worth £5 in real purchasing power because £10 has been 'created' for free and given to the bum. In reality they have £5 each.
DeleteThis is basic economics something that Communists will never understand.
YoungCommunist.. you may want to read up on "post hoc ergo propter hoc"...your logic is flawed from the get go. And of course salaries would be devalued. Read up on inflation too. :))
DeleteHere in Sacramento growing up it was maybe a couple of poor (not even homeless) in front of malls just before the holidays. During the recent flooding this past winter hundreds were pushed up to the top of the levys from their normal living spaces in tents next to the rivers. It blew me away how many there were. Food stamp usage has also risen substantially. In my youth you might rarely see a person using them in an ashamed manner at the grocery store. Now it feels fairly common and without shame.
ReplyDelete,,,and lest we forget: robotics and AI will make matter potentially worse
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Nova Scotia, welfare was not very good in the 50's and 60's only the deserving got it until they got back on their feet, in the late 60's it change the do-gooders and bleeding hearts/liberals took over and now where I grew up is shit hole of welfare, drugs and crime with the grandchildren of the first welfare recipients now collecting welfare. I'm now out in the country and half of the people here are on welfare, but since my nearest neighbour is a couple of km's away I'm not bothered, the drug use is unbelievable. Canada is a nation of broken people,the more the socialists try and fix it the worst they fuck it up.
ReplyDeleteUnknown is truly unknowing
ReplyDeleteIf you give a "bum," someone who lost a job, someone with serious disability, etc. 5 bucks and hour and someone who works 5 bucks an hour, then why bother to work? The way most places operate is to make the working person get a decent and liveable income and those getting help, much less. Then we have the situation where Walmart pays lousy salaries and those working there can not get by on that so they also apply for food stamps or welfare to supplment their income...and then you, the taxpayer, helps to subsidize Walmart for making more money by paying crap salaries.
I do know actually. In the UK you are better off if you have children and don't work. It might not be the same as in America but here they pay you tens of thousands a year and it works out better than most jobs. And it is tax free. These people compete with me and my 'earned' money.
DeleteThe subsidising of companies via welfare is another driver of slower wage increases and is another good point.
Yeah. Don't want to be a luddite. But I think automation will make things worse. Some say it will lead to a utopia, but in my experience people society doesn't need aren't treated well. I can't blame liberals for everything, I know Reagan pushed a lot of metally ill prople out into the streets for instance. But certainly the liberal run cities seem to be dens of crime and poverty.
ReplyDelete- Unlimited immigration
ReplyDelete- Democrat run schools
- Liberal run popular culture
This is no surprise.
Now I ask you, why is there never a negative employment rate published?
If there were would it be by industrial sector or job category?
LMFAO at all the ignorance here.
ReplyDeleteWell, ignorant or not, none of us can afford a house like you did so what do you suggest we do?
DeletePerhaps you would in solidarity wish to let us appropriate... I mean share... your wealth and give us deposits? After all that is the socialist/communist way isn't it?
DeleteI remember a man I met telling me about his visit to Cuba. The police said to him, "You rich, we take!" Well Jay, compared to us, "You rich.... we take!"
You down with that lefty?
LMAO