(04-10) 18:36 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A former case worker at the Glide Foundation in San Francisco was arrested Thursday and charged with stealing $121,800 from The Chronicle's Season of Sharing Fund, which seeks to help families in crisis with housing and other emergency needs, authorities said.
Lydia George, 36, of Sacramento was charged by San Francisco prosecutors with 66 counts of forgery, one count of grand theft and one count of attempted grand theft, all felonies.
Season of Sharing is a charity that provides, among other things, rental assistance of up to $2,000 for elderly people, single parents and disabled people, with funds going directly to landlords. The homeless and housing division of the city's Human Services Agency, which reviews applications for grants, has refunded the money that was allegedly taken.
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According to authorities, George used her position at the Glide Foundation, which is affiliated with Glide Memorial Church, to submit fraudulent applications for emergency housing aid to the fund from 2010 to 2011. She was later fired.
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Under the program, families could seek funding by meeting with George at Glide and providing identification. George would then draw up an application and contact the Human Services Agency, which would give final approval before checks were issued to the applicant's landlord, authorities said.
The investigation began when an agency employee noticed that the name of a landlord listed on an application submitted by George was the same as that of her sister, city welfare fraud investigator Matthew Monterosso wrote in an affidavit.
"George completed the theft by fraudulently representing others as landlords and applicants," Monterosso wrote. "Some of the individuals falsely purporting to be landlords have stated that George received a share of the grant funds and in one instance, George posed as a landlord to directly receive the grant funds."
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District Attorney George Gascón said, "This person betrayed her position of trust and stole from a worthy charity. Stealing from an organization that helps the most vulnerable is completely shameful."
Jennifer Kirschenbaum, executive director of the fund, said, "We are pleased San Francisco's Human Services Agency has repaid this amount in full to ensure the neediest in our community will get the assistance they need. The Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund is vital to assisting Bay Area residents in crisis and it is important every dollar reaches those who really need help."
The Rev. Cecil Williams, co-founder of Glide, said his organization fully cooperated with the investigation. "We never condone, and strongly disapprove of any impropriety that takes critical resources from the neediest in our community," Williamssaid.
Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: hlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @henryklee
