They offered similar services in San Francisco since 2018. And the Biden administration, responding to a national surge of homicides, is investing $500 million in community violence intervention. Campers can bring in their own tents and whatever other belongings fit inside their assigned space. She has acknowledged relationships that go back years with city power brokers, including Breed and former Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, now charged with corruption. What are you going to say, Hammonds asked, when someone comes at you like this and calls you a snitch-ass motherfing police?. Urban Alchemy said it settled a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by a co-worker and was working to settle two suits accusing the organization of not accurately calculating and paying for overtime and breaks. Training consists of two days in class, followed by a week in the field. Curating the best of The Standards top-notch reporting, every Saturday. Urban Alchemy launched in 2018, training the formerly homeless or incarcerated to de-escalate conflict, respond to overdoses and foster connection on the streets The CIRCLE pilot is part of $1 billion the city will spend confronting the homeless crisis this year Del Seymour, a Tenderloin community leader, called Urban Alchemy phenomenal because it helped calm the streets without police and allowed the city to quickly open homeless shelters. In 2021, San Francisco hired Urban Alchemy to take on a slightly different task: patrolling areas of the city with high concentrations of homeless camps and offering resources to those living outside. The employee responded that the situation would resolve itself, but the man was still arguing with people when Gilmore left the scene shortly afterward, she said. When a neighborhood, street or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. To that end, Urban Alchemy prioritizes hiring ex-convicts who have served decades in prison after being convicted of serious crimes, which can include murder. 0. At times, tension has escalated between Urban Alchemy employees and the people theyre tasked with helping. Homeless Population: 8,124. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Lauren Hepler and Chronicle photographer Stephen Lam contributed to this report. Most of Urban Alchemys 1,100 employees have served life sentences in prison, but did serious self-work to get out from under their incarceration, according to its website. Urban Alchemy started back in 2018. Exactly how campers might transition to permanent housing, however, isnt clear. At the end of the day everybody has to have respect you know? Mallory Moench (she/her) and Kevin Fagan (he/him) are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. UA has a no drugs or alcohol policy while at work, and that includes a prohibition on showing up to work under the influence of those substances, Clinebell wrote. An employee who messes up may get another chance. The group sells its service as partly spiritual, with a goal of transforming the energy of traumatized urban spaces. Employees are known inside the organization as practitioners. Building community and state level buy-in is central to achieving these goals. A video shot earlier this year by Deschamps shows Josh yelling at Kennedy. The organization said it wouldnt seek to renew because it didnt make sense to keep coordinating a small project from San Francisco. That paradigm gained momentum when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd in May 2020, galvanizing calls for reform and police alternatives. Founded in 2018 with 30 staff, Urban Alchemy started out by providing one program that monitored public bathrooms in a San Francisco neighborhood. It was along the lines of the right answer dont be confrontational. Drugs arent Cooks only problem, according to the campers who have made other serious allegations against the employee. Urban Alchemy works with long-term offenders, integrating them back into society in order to prevent them from experiencing homelessness. The ARCH is a City-owned facility providing shelter and resources in downtown Austin, managed by Urban Alchemy and Austin Area Urban League. The police are brought in to offer deescalation training, helping to establish a relationship between law enforcement and employees of Urban Alchemy. Several co-located agencies offer case management, job placement services, legal . Camp residents want to move on, hopefully to housing opportunities with the County of Marins assistance. Statistics only tell half the story. Thanks to everyone for continuing to meet the moment with persistence, grit, resilience, and compassion, wrote Mayor Eric Garcettis homelessness czar in an April 2020 email chain involving Miller. While it hires people convicted of violent crimes, it doesnt employ registered sex offenders or people convicted of sexual assault. A female camper spoke about her intimate involvement with Josh, an Urban Alchemy supervisor who worked at the camp until recently. A majority of employees are people of color, and some have been homeless. The number 18 on Joshs left arm refers to Adolph Hitler, with the 1 corresponding to the A and the 8 corresponding to the H. It appears that his left leg has a tattoo of the Iron Cross, which was a symbol used by the Nazis, according to the ADL. According to Deschamps, he heard Josh threatening Kennedy for a few minutes before he was able to turn on the video recorder on his phone. Her group has gone from providing monitors for Department of Public Works toilets and supplanting the police in various capacities Downtown to potentially taking on new roles as a San Francisco 911 first responder team and the operator of a network of government homeless camps in Portland. Another concern is that more government-approved campgrounds will mean more police enforcement for those who refuse or arent able to enter the sites similar to how the city recently resumed encampment sweeps near shelters, on the rationale that people in those areas have somewhere else to go. Campers get entered into the countys database for matching unhoused people with social services, called the coordinated entry system. Urban Alchemy saved 85 lives in 2018, through Narcan deployment, which brings back people from drug overdoses, and providing water to dehydrated people. Employees report figures on their interactions after each shift. In general, the countys coordinated entry system prioritizes people based on a vulnerability index that measures physical and mental health. The San Francisco-based nonprofit Urban Alchemy, which operates three similar campgrounds in the Bay Area, has a contract with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency, to run the East Hollywood site. The idea of providing designated areas for unhoused people to camp, with bathrooms and access to social services, isnt new. Urban Alchemy is a peaceful and supportive presence, inviting communities to rebuild and restore a sense of . Last year, more than 450 employees filed a potential class action suit alleging labor violations. Made in L.A. Streaming music, news & culture from KCRW Santa Monica, Live streaming music, news & culture from KCRW Santa Monica. Curating the best of The Standards top-notch reporting, every Saturday. If you can paint lines on a sidewalk for the same cost that you can give someone the rent for an apartment, said Myers of the Legal Aid Foundation, I'm concerned that our city is making the choice to paint the lines rather than actually get people into housing.. USFs Tavanti said he found Urban Alchemys turnover to be high, attributing it to the stressful situations the workers face and to finding better jobs. Urban Alchemy's 2022 budget shows the nonprofit receiving more than $43 million in total contract and grant revenue from the cityup from just under $36,000 in total revenue during 2018, the year it was founded. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. However, Clinebell sent another email, stating that Urban Alchemy has investigated the allegations and did not find any of the misconduct allegations to be true.. Wilson says Urban Alchemy workers dont fit the definition of patrol officer or security guard, and therein lies their advantage. Ian came up to me and said, Why did you throw us under the bus with that? Powelson said, referring to Clark-Johnson, Urban Alchemys residential services director. And then well be out of the way of all the looky-looers too, he said. After Clark-Johnson, director of residential services, and Hammonds, chief of training, stopped coming to the camp on a regular basis, two Urban Alchemy employees, Mike and Joseph, whose last names are unknown, took over. They never said they were working for the city. I was going to hit him, but UA escorted him off the property.. We know what it means to be dismissed and disrespected. Miller said the organization doesnt condone employees pushing extreme political views on the job, and her staff said it was aware of the tattoo and had received no complaints from residents. The residents of the Sausalito homeless encampment emphatically disagree about the staffs qualifications. You have to understand why people do the things they do, what it looks like and the process. You have entered an incorrect email address! Security is something totally different. Bruce criticized Urban Alchemys hiring model, saying it was a recipe for disaster to have people with troubled backgrounds acting as authority figures over the most vulnerable citizens. Urban Alchemy said issues have surfaced in a small fraction of interactions. Despite enjoying fairly broad support in the neighborhood, though, the nonprofit has also faced an array of criticism. Alejandro Sanchez, who is on the clean team explains their approach. "We have to have housing. He has ridden with the rails with modern-day hobos, witnessed seven prison executions, written extensively about serial killers including the Unabomber, Doodler and Zodiac, and covered disasters ranging from the Sept. 11 terror attacks at Ground Zero to California's devastating wildfires. We are alchemists, Hammonds told his class, and we want to make where we are a more golden, loving space.. In Los Angeles, homeless advocates accused Urban Alchemy, which was hired on a six-month, $350,000 contract to offer shelter to people living at Echo Park Lake, of acting as an arm of law enforcement to clear encampments. We provide a safe community for people to be in, so they're not out on the streets, said Miller. In a Market street building, Louie Hammonds a former gang member who served 21 years in prison for attempted murder and is now Urban Alchemys chief of training role-played scenarios on the streets. We found a turd and turned it into gold. The campsite, he said, offers a safer place to sleep than the streets. Theyre not just getting out of prison and putting them out there.. In our experience, cleaning is one of the . The person in question could be Powelson. Right now in the City of Los Angeles, it's a free-for-all, said Buscaino, who is a former LAPD officer. The police eventually arrived at the camp in response to the verbal altercation, although its not clear who called them. We dont have weapons, mace. When a neighborhood, street or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. Since 2018, Urban Alchemy has grown to 1,100 employees in five cities, with projected revenue of $55 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, records show. We try to make sure we're not getting into anybody's personal space. They dont have name tags on, and some were pretty confrontational. At the July 28 City Council meeting, all but two members voted to hand over operations of the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless (ARCH) to Urban Alchemy.. That's the California-based . We're a social enterprise that engages with situations where extreme poverty meets homelessness, mental illness and addiction. California is ranked number 1 in homelessness, with nearly 130,000 homeless individuals, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and numbers only continue to rise. Powelson said he reported drug use by Urban Alchemy staff to Josh, who was a shift supervisor. Urban Alchemy has helped me to learn to help myself, Paradox said. Fresh off tens of millions in local contracts, the Urban Alchemy founder now has her sights set nationwide. I really liked him, the woman, who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns, said. Our agenda is humane treatment for people, and at Echo Park it meant offering them shelter as a safe place to go, which they took voluntarily simply by it being offered., Marco Tavanti, an expert on nonprofits at the University of San Francisco, said the five lawsuits against Urban Alchemy represented an elevated number compared to other nonprofits, except for some in the health sector. Josh treated me like trash. The workers most of them rebuilding their own lives after being incarcerated might ask people to move tents off sidewalks so children can walk to school, pick up syringes or rush in to reverse one of the citys frequent drug overdoses. An increasingly bipartisan chorus is asking where all the money goes for the states homeless crisis. But where others in the nonprofit services sector and psychologists see prison trauma as debilitating, Millerwho recently received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of San Franciscobelieves that struggling to survive on the inside requires expertise in an encyclopedias worth of social cues. For Davis, we are all here to hold each other accountable to be our better selves.. Know Your City! Los Angeles, CA. See how far weve come. SFs most important stories, delivered straight to your inbox, Urban Alchemy employees pick up trash, while homeless people gather belongings in the Tenderloin. Guests at the East Hollywood site, who Miller says are being found through outreach in the surrounding area, are likely to have a wide variety of needs and backgrounds. Ive had 20 years of homelessness off and on, and this has given me great purpose.. Los Angeles is seeking answers to the homeless crisis. Urban Alchemy is "moving the needle where nobody else is really able to move the needle, which is because they're doing the same old, same old," Miller said. Copyright 2023 KABC Television, LLC. So doing nothing also costs a lot of money.. When the pandemic scrambled the city's homelessness strategy, Urban Alchemy parlayed the hygiene and vehicle work into much more. That, however, is a slow process, and the county has a long waiting list. (The federal government already operates a similar site on the West LA Veterans Affairs campus in Brentwood.) Los Angeles is seeking answers to the homeless crisis. Copyright 2023 Urban Alchemy. She has taken these young men, embraced them, given them a job to do when they get out of jail.. Urban Alchemy is moving the needle where nobody else is really able to move the needle, which is because theyre doing the same old, same old, Miller said. Dillon said nobody else had achieved what Miller had in Bayview and Hunters Point. On Joshs right leg, an 88 tattoo is clearly visible, which stands for Heil Hitler, according to the Anti-Defamation League, as H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. SFs most important stories, delivered straight to your inbox, An aerial view of a Civic Center safe sleep site homeless encampment near City Hall in San Francisco, Calif. on October 30, 2021. Cities have hired Urban Alchemy because they see unique potential in its strategy, simultaneously employing people who typically struggle to get hired while reducing the role of armed officers amid a movement for police reform. Urban Alchemy notified the city on May 9 that they wouldnt be entering a new agreement, according to Urban Alchemys media representative. One of those projects, a multi-phase apartment complex called Enlightenment Plaza, partly funded by the voter-backed Proposition HHH bond measure, is slated to rise on the very same East Hollywood Parking lot where the campsite now sits. In reality, the nonprofit provided cover for city efforts to roust people from their tent sites, according to activist complaints documented in a UCLA research paper describing Urban Alchemy workers as a surveillance group, an arm of the police and a mercenary outfit intent on exploiting their workers own precarity as feel-good media narratives.. No arrests have been made in either case. Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing for four years and running the Homeless Street. Instead of an hourly wage, they offer a non-cash basic-needs stipend, case management, employment services, and a support network within their community. In San Francisco, the organization is being paid $11.8 million over two years to work in the Tenderloin including $3 million from UC Hastings College of the Law, which is located in the neighborhood. 5/3/2022. There was a lot more anonymity and a lot more opportunity for exploitation. The plan looked at three short-term goals to be achieved in three years: end youth homelessness; end veterans homelessness; and decrease unsheltered homelessness by 50 percent. Urban Alchemy Practitioners have been turning the San Francisco Clean program since 2015. But another councilmember who plans to open safe camping sites, Joe Buscaino, says enforcement is part of the point. Urban Alchemy secured the bulk of its work during the pandemic. Funding would come from Austin Public. Miller noted how the work provides not only an income but also a sense of pride, remarking on an anecdote where one employee called the Governor of California into a bathroom stall he had just cleaned to show him how clean it was. She previously covered immigration and local news for the Albany Times Union and the Alabama state legislature for the Associated Press. Im going to fuck you up, Josh can be heard shouting in the first second of the video. Helping with that transformational experience takes extensive preparation, said Lola Whittle, president of the Urban Alchemy board of directors. Shes just mad because I wont let her suck my dick, Josh said to the police, according to two campers. We prioritize hiring long-term offenders.. Urban Alchemy saved 85 lives in 2018, through Narcan deployment, which brings back people from drug overdoses, and providing water to dehydrated people. The San Francisco Standard. bitea dose of arts, culture and more. Since 2019, the organization has won $62 million in. He wasnt trying to sell it., Mike drank a beer while working, according to Kennedy. Los Angeles has opened its first government-run homeless encampment on a quiet, commercial block beside the 101 freeway in East Hollywood. Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. People like Ronda Briggs, who was once homeless, hope to provide non-emergency help, homeless outreach and referrals to supportive services. Soon, four workers gathered around Sarah Snider, who said she had been homeless for more than 20 years, and waited until she injected fentanyl and cocaine into her thigh before packing up to leave. Some advocates are concerned, however, that even with a $1 billion homelessness spending plan proposed for this coming fiscal year, the city is investing too much in short-term band aids over long-term solutions. Urban Alchemy offers four core services designed to meet the needs of the people and places in the communities we work. We can give them the training. We collaborated with everyone from the homeless to local business owners to unite the community and clean up the area. They come through word of mouth, walk-ins, job fairs, online searches, and referrals from parole officers or other organizations. And unlike at the West LA VAs safe camping site, this one doesnt share a campus with various health care facilities, and campers dont have access to a special pool of housing rental vouchers like eligible military veterans do. The city has also signed $53 million in contracts with Urban Alchemy to run eight homeless shelters and help staff the citys new Tenderloin Linkage Center near City Hall, where people can connect to services. He handed me a rolled up 20-dollar bill with crushed up crystal meth. Ill say, Have a good day, sir, the trainee responded. Email: mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com, kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mallorymoench, @kevinchron. Get the latest from KCRW in your inbox 3x a week. It can't be the type of offer that leads to criminalization and displacement and the shutting down of other public spaces, said Shayla Myers, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles. It turned dark.. We also acted immediately to notify the proper support and authorities, he said. Kevin Fagan is a longtime, award-winning reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle, specializing in homelessness, enterprise news-feature writing, breaking news and crime. Low cost affordable housing for individuals and families. They were salesmen, you know, Powelson said. 'Urban Alchemy' responds to LA's homeless crisis 5 January 11, 2023, 8:41 PM Los Angeles is seeking answers to the homeless crisis. The organization holds $62 million in contracts in San Francisco while also providing homeless services in a half-dozen cities. Clark-Johnson and Hammonds came back several times. On a recent morning, a couple of days before the parking lot in East Hollywood opened to its first campers, a few unhoused men stood on the sidewalk outside its mesh-covered fence. To date, Downtown Streets Team has secured over 1,900 jobs and homes for people. By the end of this year, however, he needs it back. Not even base metal. With Urban Alchemys contract ending this month and their denial of the allegations, it appears the trauma the campers say was caused by the employees will not be addressed. Starting salaries are less than half those of sworn police officers. The agreement calls for Urban Alchemy to provide positive engagements with the campers, de-escalation interventions and custodial services. Kirkpatrick Tyler, who is in charge of government and community affairs for the organization, describes the past prison experience of Urban Alchemy workers as parallel to the story of every single superhero in every comic book that youve ever readthat they have a traumatic experience, [and] they have to make sure that traumatic experience has a sustainable transformational impact on who they are to their core..