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SAN FRANCISCO -- A woman backing out of her garage in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood drove over and killed a man sleeping outside her home, police said Wednesday. The man was sleeping on the ground outside the 28-year-old woman's garage on Third Street near Bryant Street at 7 a.m. Tuesday when she backed out in her sedan and rolled over him, . . .

A city that seizes homeless people's property from a street or sidewalk must preserve it so that the owner has a chance to reclaim it, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. "The government may not take property like a thief in the night; rather, it must announce its intentions and give the property owner a chance to argue against the taking," the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said. The 2-1 decision, which has statewide implications, upheld a federal judge's order last year that allowed residents of Los Angeles' Skid Row to leave personal possessions on the...

A husband and wife who headed an antipoverty program in Alameda County were indicted Tuesday for allegedly misusing more than $200,000 in taxpayer money, which prosecutors say they spent on travel, meals and home repairs. Nanette Dillard, who headed the Associated Community Action Program, and her husband, Paul Daniels, the program's former grant administrator, were charged with one count each of grand theft, conspiracy and crime by a public officer. Although the couple are charged with misspending $200,000, "the final bill" was probably in the neighborhood of $1.5 million, said Robert Lieber, an Albany city councilman and former chairman of...

FRESNO – Two homeless men in Fresno have called for an ambulance an average of nearly twice a day for more than a year, racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs – and even more when they get to a hospital. They are Fresno County's highest-volume ambulance users – "frequent fliers" as they are called in the business – and their 1,363 combined trips made up 1.34 percent of all American Ambulance calls in the county last year. "I call all the time," Cesar Arana, 41, said while sitting on a bus-stop bench downtown. "I have a major...

All those new plazas and “parklets” across the city may seem downright adorable, but they’re the unlikely new hotspot in the never-ending battle over the city’s homeless policy. Supervisor Scott Wiener’s legislation crafting rules for Jane Warner Plaza and Harvey Milk Plaza — both at the intersection of Market and Castro streets — seemed pretty vanilla at first. But let’s face it, nothing’s vanilla in this town. The idea was to set some guidelines for the plazas which are in a sort of no-man’s land because they’re not technically parks, streets or sidewalks, all of which are governed by different...

The giant, glittery Christmas tree. Novice ice skaters giggling as they fall. A crazed panhandler quacking like a duck as he follows a startled family down the street. Ah, it's holiday shopping season in Union Square. Over the summer, we told you that hotel owners and merchants in the area were complaining to City Hall that aggressive panhandling was worse than ever - and that tourists were being stalked by beggars demanding payment. We recently checked in with the same folks because this time of year is their second busiest season - and shoppers with bulging bags and fewer daylight...

The New York Times has a story today on the “near poor,” Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census.” The story concerns a new Census Bureau method of measuring poverty — which has census statisticians “startled” as they’ve found 100 million Americans they consider to be “near poor.”  Maybe the census crunchers should be”startled” because families in the story do not read like the ”near poor.” Consider this example cited by the Times:Among them is Phyllis Pendleton, a social worker with Catholic Charities in Washington, who proudly displays the signs of a hard-won middle-class life. She has one BlackBerry and two cars (both Buicks...

The city can stop paying rent subsidies for more than 16,000 formerly homeless families after losing state backing for the initiative, a judge ruled Tuesday in a case that advocates have said could make thousands of people homeless again. While the Advantage program has valuable aims, the city was within its rights to cancel it, Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Judith J. Gische said. New York City officials "have no ongoing obligation, contractual or otherwise, to continue the Advantage program," she wrote. An appeals court had ordered the city to keep paying the assistance while the legal fight played out....

Two men who appeared to be homeless argue loudly near the cable car turnaround on Powell Street, accusing each other of stealing a panhandling spot. A man approaches lost tourists, offering to give them directions - after which he'll demand payment. Several panhandlers crowd the sidewalk in front of the Walgreens up the street, jostling for space to catch shoppers. The two scenes play out within blocks of each other on a recent morning during the peak of San Francisco's tourist season and the beginning of the convention season. And it is angering the businesspeople and hotel owners who make...

A group of 477 individuals costs The City more than $20 million in emergency medical services in one year — 10 of whom racked up ambulance, emergency, detox and crisis psychiatric services to the tune of $2.3 million.  Those figures have been compiled as part of a new Department of Public Health initiative to get a better handle on San Francisco’s most hardcore homeless population — individuals dubbed “high users of multiple systems” who in many cases suffer from debilitating psychiatric or medical diseases, and typically have severe dependence on alcohol or drugs.The information about this population was unavailable until...

I ran into a man I'd known for years at a supermarket the other day. He's an old San Francisco guy, so I was surprised at what he said. "I'm moving out of the city," he said. "San Francisco is not the city I grew up in anymore. I'm through with it. "Yep," he said, "I'm gonna sell my house and move to Novato. You know what? The sun shines there in the summer. I mean they have sun - that big yellow thing - sun in July and August. I'm tired of the fog - fog every night and...

A federal jury in Sacramento issued a mixed verdict Tuesday in a class-action lawsuit on behalf of homeless people whose possessions have been seized and destroyed in city police sweeps. The jury found that the city failed to properly notify homeless people of how they could retrieve property removed from illegal campsites and to implement policies for handling and storing those possessions. But it rejected several other claims, including that the city had a longstanding policy of unreasonably seizing and destroying the tents, sleeping bags, prescription medications, and other personal property of homeless men and women.

Homeless men and women – weathered by the elements and carrying bags and backpacks – are getting a chance to tell their side of the story in federal court about how the city of Sacramento treats them. In a highly unusual case that focuses on their nightly searches for places to sleep, the city's down and out are pitted against city police who are charged with enforcing a local ordinance prohibiting camping in undesignated areas for more than 24 hours at a time. The civil class action, brought on behalf of all homeless people in Sacramento who have lost tents,...

To get a sense of just how dire the city's budget picture is, take a look at proposals from the Human Services Agency to comply with the mayor's requirement that departments come up with 10 percent in cuts and another 10 percent as a contingency. For the Human Services Agency, each 10 percent plan totals $9.3 million - and it's getting harder and harder to find trims. Director Trent Rhorer has prepared a memo outlining his suggestions, though they still need approval from the agency's commission. For starters, services would be majorly cut back at the city's two drop-in centers...

And speaking of the America's Cup, just when the city's political factions were playing nice and putting up a unified front, Supervisor Chris Daly announced late Thursday he was opposed to the proposal "just on general principle -- G.P., they call it on the street." . . . "They'll just sweep the homeless people out of the streets and out of sight while the regatta is going," Daly said. "Instead of raising $270 million to hand over to a billionaire, why don't we try to house some people . . . "

Since Mayor Gavin Newsom took office, he and the city of San Francisco have spent more than $1 billion on the homeless. But is it helping? This year, the city spent $150 million on health care and social services for its estimated 13,500 homeless on the street or in city-funded housing. That comes to about $11,000 per person. The city has spent another $176 million, mostly in federal funds, on permanent housing for the homeless since 2004. Newsom said at a recent Chronicle editorial board meeting that since implementing his Care Not Cash program, the city has taken 12,000 people...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't get the warmest reception Friday morning when he approached a homeless encampment under a bus overpass for the soon-to-be-demolished Transbay Terminal. "Go away, man!" hollered 60-year-old Kolinio Waqairawai as he sat against a concrete pillar, a koala blanket draped over his legs, a pack of Parliament cigarettes on his lap and a 16-ounce Bud Light tall boy near at hand. "You're wasting the state's money." Within five minutes, Waqairawai was holding Newsom's hand and flashing a smile showing his missing lower tooth as the mayor knelt next to him. After rhapsodizing about Marin County...

It could soon be illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks anywhere in San Francisco, a law Mayor Gavin Newsom says would make city life safer for pedestrians and merchants, but that homeless advocates and others say would amount to profiling against the poor. Newsom will introduce two separate versions of a sit/lie law today at the Board of Supervisors. One version would prohibit sitting or lying on public sidewalks in about 20 commercial corridors throughout the city and is modeled on a similar law in Seattle that was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The...

Sacramento police arrested 17 homeless residents at their "safe ground" campsite this morning, including one advocate for the homeless. Rev. David Moss, a Methodist Minister, was taken into custody along with other campers, charged with illegal camping, Sacramento police Sgt. Norm Leong said. A press release by Loaves & Fishes early morning claimed Sister Libby Fernandez, executive director of the Loaves & Fishes homeless services group, was arrested together with other campers. But later Sacramento police clarified that she was only detained for a short period when police arrived to search the camp. Only those who had been previously cited...

Within hours after being rousted from their "safe ground" campsite in downtown Sacramento on Wednesday morning, homeless men and women were putting up new tents and preparing for another potential confrontation with police. Fifteen police officers cut a lock and entered the property on C Street between 12th and 14th streets where about 30 homeless people have slept for the past 10 days, cited them for illegal camping and seized their tents, sleeping bags and other possessions as evidence. The show of force drew TV satellite trucks, homeless advocates, attorneys and others to the property, which a local civil rights...