Urban Alchemy’s woes raise alarms
Last Friday evening, news broke that a former Urban Alchemy employee had been charged with attempted murder, after allegedly shooting a man during a 15-minute break from his job in December at a homeless shelter on Polk Street. According to the nonprofit, which largely hires people of color who have experienced incarceration, the employee was fired the following day after not showing up for work, and it was unaware of his arrest until late January.
It’s not always appropriate to pin blame on an employer for the behavior of its staff. If an employee of Target, for example, was accused of the same crime, their place of employment wouldn’t necessarily be a story. But earlier this month the city of San Francisco selected Urban Alchemy to operate its up-andcoming Community Response Team, a one-year, $2.75 million police alternative that would handle low-level calls about homelessness that come in via 911.
Is it disqualifying that an employee of a nonprofit tasked with de-escalating violence and keeping the peace may have tried to kill somebody while on a break?
According to Kirkpatrick Tyler, chief of community affairs for Urban Alchemy, not at all.
“That incident didn’t have anything to do with Urban Alchemy,” he told me in an interview. “That (was) a personal beef that existed before he was employed. He had just been hired two months ago.”
But the shooting is just one of many damning incidents the organization has allegedly been a party to in recent years as its footprint has grown in San Francisco and across the country. Urban Alchemy faces multiple lawsuits over sexual harassment, unpaid overtime and forcing people to move without cause. Two employees were shot last year in the Tenderloin, raising concerns about placing them in dangerous scenarios without adequate training. There’s the recent controversial uniform choice that flooded mid-Market and the Tenderloin with Urban Alchemy employees in army-style camouflage.
I regularly talk to unhoused people as a reporter for articles, and it’s hard to find someone who hasn’t had a bad experience with an Urban Alchemy employee. Stories of physical assault are not uncommon. There are tales of rampant sexual harassment, like being whistled at and catcalled on the street. A friend of mine and Tenderloin resident, Mary Kay Chin, told me she often crosses the street when she sees Urban Alchemy workers and feels safer walking among the drug dealers.
Their large presence in the neighborhood baffles her.
“Who are they serving?” she asked when I talked to her earlier this month.
It’s a fair question, especially given that the organization now holds $62 million in city contracts, much of which it secured during the pandemic. In the past few years, the city granted several no-bid contracts to Urban Alchemy, paying them to do everything from run shelters and sanctioned tent encampments to patrol the streets.
Critics say that the organization too often fails to hold its employees accountable — and the fact that workers don’t wear nametags in the streets makes it hard for the public to do so. Urban Alchemy’s Tyler said the organization takes complaints seriously — although it finds many to be unsubstantiated. The best method for filing a complaint in San Francisco, he said, is to walk into their offices at 1035 Market St. and talk to a supervisor.
Yet it’s hard to imagine that people who claim to have been harassed or worse by Urban Alchemy workers would feel comfortable enough to swing by and complain, particularly if they live in a temporary shelter staffed by the organization.
Nevertheless, Urban Alchemy believes it’s the best group to field low-level 911 calls. Its leadership argues that serving time in prison, an experience most of its employees share, builds emotional intelligence and situational awareness. Many also have the lived experience of homelessness that Urban Alchemy’s clients often face.
They have other experience, too: In late 2021, Urban Alchemy was selected to handle Los Angeles’ Crisis and Incident Response Community-Led Engagement program, which also diverts non-emergency calls relating to homelessness. It does so in partnership with the housing nonprofit Home at Last, which provides mental health clinicians for the team. Urban Alchemy employees handle deescalation, data reporting and housing referrals.
“The idea that we’re kind of new to it, or this is us kind of putting the cart before the horse, it’s just not true,” Tyler said. “We are confident because we have an infrastructure that we can prove over the last year and a half has been effective.”
But what constitutes “effective” in these police-alternative pilot programs is still being hashed out. In Urban Alchemy’s case, there’s an uncomfortable lack of transparency. The Los Angeles crisis program isn’t listed on its website. Nor is Urban Alchemy’s board of directors. This combined with the disconcerting slew of allegations of misconduct has led many to view the awarding of another San Francisco contract with skepticism.
Urban Alchemy’s goal of providing opportunities for the formerly incarcerated is noble and important. But that doesn’t obviate the need for robust training and support for employees — and for accountability and transparency when things go wrong.
More than ever, it seems San Francisco is becoming a powder keg, where tensions between housed and unhoused residents can easily explode into violence. The last thing this city can afford is for the organization charged with de-escalating those conflicts to be the one to light the match.