At times, tension has escalated between Urban Alchemy employees and the people theyre tasked with helping. The first step of the plan calls for transitioning away from using the police as a first point of contact and instead reaching out to social workers. I really liked him, the woman, who requested anonymity due to privacy concerns, said. Urban Alchemy, a workforce development agency, trains and employs former long-term offenders. One organization the city is working with, Urban Alchemy, was founded to provide career opportunities for the formerly incarcerated. 636 Eye Street, NW Im going to fuck you up, Josh can be heard shouting in the first second of the video. A video shot earlier this year by Deschamps shows Josh yelling at Kennedy. Bayron Wilson, Urban Alchemys director of operations, says the Sausalito allegations were false, and that the organization did a successful job helping the campers, who had just been kicked out of floating homes anchored in Richardson Bay. Homelessness Rate: 0.93%. The site closed in June 2022 after operating for a little over two years. During training, students learn Urban Alchemys seven values respect, integrity, empowerment, empathy, self-discipline, self-control and self-esteem. Plans for continuing education such as computer and financial literacy are also in the works, the organization said. Camp residents want to move on, hopefully to housing opportunities with the County of Marins assistance. Volunteers wear bright yellow shirts, denoting them as members of the community and part of the Downtown Streets Team. Send news tips to. Were stunned with the insensitivity of calling our workforce mercenary, especially since our practitioners are primarily Black, Latino and formerly incarcerated or homeless, Miller said. 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. Because a city this offbeat deserves a newsletter with some Urban Alchemy also runs the safe parking program in the Bayview, cabins at 33 Gough St., as well as the now closed Civic Center tent village, although it is upfront about not providing . Curating the best of The Standards top-notch reporting, every Saturday. In terms of getting to the other side of it, that's not my lane. Fresh off tens of millions in local contracts, the Urban Alchemy founder now has her sights set nationwide. The organization also reported reversing 123 drug overdoses using Narcan nasal spray. . Business and city leaders have credited Urban Alchemy with making streets cleaner and safer. I like them, Ken Kennedy, a camper who is in the process of leaving the Sausalito encampment, said. Throughout much of that period, Mike and Joseph oversaw the camp and helped move the encampment from downtown Sausalito to Marinship Park last June. Including them as part of the community helps ensure norms are met. He wasnt trying to sell it., Mike drank a beer while working, according to Kennedy. With so few reviews, your opinion of Urban Alchemy could be huge. bitea dose of arts, culture and more. Crime has gone up in America, the same old solutions are not working, so were going to see more growth in these areas and there are going to be growing pains, said Jorja Leap, an adjunct public policy professor at UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, who is the lead researcher for Bidens efforts and was not involved in the Echo Lake Park report. Once the city increased the contract, we got all these new Urban Alchemy people coming and going, Powelson said. Last week on Tuesday, San Francisco housing project for homeless development is rejected by a majority of the city supervisors with an 8 to 3 vote. The stillborn baby was found at a site that was located in a rotunda in front of San Francisco City Hall. It represents a new strategy meant to corral the tents and cobbled-together structures that currently stand in parks, on sidewalks and below freeway overpasses, while providing services to the unhoused. So we don't want to pick up anything that's theirs," says Sanchez. Some Urban Alchemy staff members did drugs on the job and sexually exploited homeless females, according to more than 10 current and past residents of the Sausalito camp who spoke to the Pacific Sun. And outsourcing government functions to nonprofits can make it more difficult for the public to evaluate whether spending is achieving results. Urban Alchemy asserts that spending 20+ years in a confined environment teaches instincts that cant be learned in a classroom, making their practitioners uniquely qualified to work with homeless people. Since 2019, the organization has won $62 million in. | Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images, By clicking Subscribe you confirm you have read and agree to our. Theres a lot of training, she said. The collectives co-founder, Aqeela Sherrills, called Urban Alchemy highly effective, saying it builds relationships, helps people with housing and reduces violence. I did a line with an Urban Alchemy guy, Sarah Gossage, a current encampment resident, said. 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. People like Ronda Briggs, who was once homeless, hope to provide non-emergency help, homeless outreach and referrals to supportive services. Aaron Kelly, a current resident of the camp, said he did crystal meth with the same Urban Alchemy employee, who no longer works at the Sausalito encampment. 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. We are alchemists, Hammonds told his class, and we want to make where we are a more golden, loving space.. Councilmember Ward is the chair of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, an integrated array of stakeholders committed to preventing and alleviating homelessness., Dispelling myths about who the homeless was paramount to all three speakers, but Elliott highlighted that in San Diego, the cause is primarily economic. S.F. In training, Hammonds taught the new employees to be patiently persuasive when asking people who may be homeless, addicted or traumatized to stop blocking sidewalks or using drugs in public. When we arrived on the scene, the Tenderloin faced an unmanageable problem with littering. The organization later urged employees to call police instead of engaging with dealers. My lane is this part. But for decades it was politically unpopular and considered radical. They can go to sleep at night, no one's going to touch them, hurt them, creep in their tent, she said. Powelson claims Clark-Johnson was one of the two men in upper management who smoked concentrated marijuana oil with the campers. They helped pick up trash, brought pizza and smoked concentrated marijuana oil out in the open with the homeless residents, according to Powelson. If you have no self-control, no discipline, or choose to take it personally, he said, this is not the job for you.. When a neighborhood, street or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. Despite skepticism from some homeless advocates, Urban Alchemy sees its separation from law enforcement as central to its mission. Were able to do this because we share a special bond with societys most vulnerable and because we see ourselves in their struggle. Elliott expressed a commitment to reduce the number of unsheltered people in San Diego County, which he cited as at least 4,476 people, nearly 55 percent of the at least 8,100 homeless residents of San Diego County. Ive had 20 years of homelessness off and on, and this has given me great purpose.. A female camper spoke about her intimate involvement with Josh, an Urban Alchemy supervisor who worked at the camp until recently. Made in L.A. Streaming music, news & culture from KCRW Santa Monica, Live streaming music, news & culture from KCRW Santa Monica. In order to combat the housing issue, the city council has committed to at least 140 new units of permanent support housing in all 9 council districts to be built over two years. 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. No one wants to touch that kind of liability.. If necessary, employees call paramedics, homeless outreach teams or if confronted with violence or the threat of violence police. The citys homeless services department said shelters run by Urban Alchemy have had few issues and that the organization has met the terms of its contracts. Most of the calls involve people experiencing homelessness, in some cases drug use. Despite enjoying fairly broad support in the neighborhood, though, the nonprofit has also faced an array of criticism. If you are in need of emergency shelter, please contact the Union County 24 Hour Homeless Emergency Response Hotline at 2-1-1. But at Urban Alchemy, their skills are sought-after. Instead of an hourly wage, they offer a non-cash basic-needs stipend, case management, employment services, and a support network within their community. Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing for four years and running the Homeless Street. And they were also hired to help clear out Echo Park last summer. All Rights Reserved. At the ASLA 2019 Conference on Landscape Architecture in San Diego, Brian Elliott, policy analyst for San Diego Councilmember Chris Ward; Brandon Davis with the California-based Downtown Streets Team; and Lena Miller with Urban Alchemy, discussed strategies to reintegrate homeless individuals into their communities, ranging from top-down policy decisions to empowering local unsheltered populations through employment options. We try to make sure we're not getting into anybody's personal space. In Sausalito, where city officials paid Urban Alchemy $464,000 to run a tent encampment for six months, a photo shows that a worker wearing shorts had a visible 88 tattoo on his right calf, a well-known code for Heil Hitler. (H is the eighth letter of the alphabet.) David Sjostedt can be reached at [emailprotected]. The idea of providing designated areas for unhoused people to camp, with bathrooms and access to social services, isnt new. The entitys core philosophythat long stints in prison can equip a person for handling crises in the streetsis a selling point that seems to run counter to mainstream psychology. 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. DM B. He noted that a hospital bill they could not pay, a utility bill they could not pay, balanced with housing, especially in a high-cost market with low vacancy rates, leads to homelessness., The City of San Diego unanimously passed the Community Action Plan on Homelessness, a body of policy focused on helping the existing homeless population, preventing future homelessness, and ensuring that homelessness is an experience that is brief and non-recurring. He then clocked out, came back into the camp, and hung out., However, Mike was later moved to another Urban Alchemy location after being caught on cell phone video calling a woman at the Sausalito encampment a bitch and a whore.. 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. But Millers core philosophythat long stints in prison can equip a person for handling crises in the streetsis a selling point that seems to run counter to mainstream psychology. They dont have name tags on, and some were pretty confrontational. Urban Alchemy won a $10 million contract to operate the safe sleeping site, or tent village, on Fulton Street in May of 2020. We dont have anything that says Security. We call ourselves practitioners.. 0. Urban Alchemy is a peaceful and supportive presence, inviting communities to rebuild and restore a sense of pride . On any given day, the employees of Urban Alchemy, a nonprofit that puts civilians on the sidewalks to address street-level issues rooted in addiction, mental illness and homelessness, might discourage someone in San Francisco from shooting up in public. The first apartments in Enlightenment Plaza are expected to open to residents at the end of 2022. 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. At about midnight on Jan. 7, 2022, the fire department responded to a report that a stillborn baby was found in the portable bathroom of a tent village referred to as a Safe Sleep Site.. The CIRCLE dispatch center can respond to 911 calls to LAPD that aren't criminal in nature. Mallory Moench is a San Francisco City Hall reporter. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, By clicking Subscribe you confirm you have read and agree to our. 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. You have entered an incorrect email address! 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. Davis made clear that homelessness is an experience, not an identity.. In Sausalito, where Urban Alchemy was hired to guard a tent encampment occupied by former residents of boats that had been confiscated, media reports described meth use, pot dealing and sexual encounters and assaults involving Urban Alchemy staff. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Lauren Hepler and Chronicle photographer Stephen Lam contributed to this report. The organization said it wouldnt seek to renew because it didnt make sense to keep coordinating a small project from San Francisco. The simple action of donning a yellow shirt and cleaning the community restores their dignity as people and members of their community. One person claims they had to resort to sex work after the city allegedly destroyed their encampment. Drugs arent Cooks only problem, according to the campers who have made other serious allegations against the employee. She previously covered immigration and local news for the Albany Times Union and the Alabama state legislature for the Associated Press. Before that, she freelanced with a focus on the Yemeni diaspora while studying at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. Miller says salaries start around $19 an hour, and I fight really hard to try to give good wages to my people.. The organization said it believes that engaging in conversations and encouraging folks to care about their neighborhood is a much more effective approach than forcing people to move or having police write tickets to those who cannot afford to pay them.. Urban Alchemy is a peaceful and supportive presence, inviting communities to rebuild and restore a sense of . In December 2021, the Sausalito City Council approved a $463,620 contract with Urban Alchemy for around the clock site management services, from January through June 2022, at the Marinship encampment. Los Angeles, CA. 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. Hammonds sweeps up trash along Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin. Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. Wounded Warriors opened its first residence for homeless veterans, called Alpha House, at 1361 Fifth Ave. N. in the city of Naples in January 2020. Copyright 2023 Urban Alchemy. 1. With this setup at the camp, you have males preying on vulnerable women.. Organizers believe those successes are possible because many were once homeless themselves and use that experience to make connections. Homeless Population: 8,124. The lawsuit, which also names the city as a defendant, is ongoing. No arrests have been made in either case. A report published by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy attacked the nonprofit, calling it a mercenary and saying its function is to disappear visible poverty in a manner that appears less violent and more palatable than previous sweep systems.. 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. The developer, a former city redevelopment official and executive with the homeless services organization PATH named John Molloy, is loaning the parking lot to the city for free in the meantime for its safe camping site. Ive had 20 years of homelessness off and on, and this has given me great purpose., David Harding, a professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, said he hasnt heard of another organization as large as Urban Alchemy thats not just willing to hire people with criminal records but actively seeks out those folks as employees.. 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. I believe it provides a good service for the community, said one, who only gave his first name, Eugene. Some critics accuse the workers who are not state-licensed as private security guards of improperly policing public spaces. Josh responded that he would take care of it. 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. SFs most important stories, delivered straight to your inbox, Urban Alchemy employees pick up trash, while homeless people gather belongings in the Tenderloin. All of these skills help them to establish and maintain social norms in the public places they work. Urban Alchemy made their first contact with Sausalito's homeless residents on Feb. 13, 2021, about two months after the first tent was pitched, according to Robbie Powelson, a former Sausalito camper and president of the Marin Homeless Union. 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.. LA opens its first government-run homeless encampment. We dont have a badge. She joined The San Francisco Chronicle in 2019 to report on business and has also written about wildfires, transportation and the coronavirus pandemic. Employees called 911 nearly 300 times during the same time period. The residents of the Sausalito homeless encampment emphatically disagree about the staffs qualifications. Steveo would drop off drugs to a woman at the camp and ask campers to find him drugs, Phil Deschamps, a current encampment resident, said. The stations are dropped off and picked up daily by United. 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. But another councilmember who plans to open safe camping sites, Joe Buscaino, says enforcement is part of the point. In addition, three homeless individuals are suing the organization for civil rights violations by Urban Alchemy employees. We provide a safe community for people to be in, so they're not out on the streets, said Miller. Robert Milton, a supervisor at the Department of Public Works, the agency that funds much of Urban Alchemys work, said seeing people who served long sentences holding on to a steady job sends a message. Copyright Weeklys All rights reserved. At the time, Powelson and the other campers had no idea Clark-Johnson and Hammonds were high-level managers in an organization retained by the City of Sausalito. Urban Alchemy saved 85 lives in 2018, through Narcan deployment, which brings back people from drug overdoses, and providing water to dehydrated people. Downtown Streets Team employs local homeless populations to clean community spaces in San Jose and San Francisco. Each call handled by CIRCLE, is a call LAPD doesn't need to answer, freeing officers up for other calls. Entry level positions for Urban Alchemy, like the Clean Teams, have become a familiar site in downtown Los Angeles, Venice and Hollywood. Kirkpatrick Tyler, Urban Alchemy's chief of community affairs said in a statement that Perry was a long-time employee of another nonprofit homeless agency called Five Keys and was recently hired at Urban Alchemy. 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. Mayor London Breed awarded the non-profit Urban Alchemy an $8.8 million grant to blanket the downtown area in August 2021. They dont understand how to engage with women, Dorsey said, describing one Urban Alchemy supervisor accused of assault who was merely shifted to another post. We collaborated with everyone from the homeless to local business owners to unite the community and clean up the area. In one altercation, Arthur Bruce, who is homeless and lives near the encampment, accused an employee of hitting him during an argument and sending him to the hospital with an injured wrist, an account backed by two friends who said they witnessed the encounter. 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..
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