Draft:Urban Alchemy

Urban Alchemy (UA) is a San Francisco-based non-profit organization 501(C)(3) led by founder and chief executive officer Lena Miller. A receiver of different state and city funds, UA's organizational mission involves patrolling neighborhoods in several cities, now including San Francisco CA, Oakland, Los Angeles, Culver City, Austin TX, Birmingham AL, and Portland OR. The organization hires groups of community "ambassadors" who regularly interact with homeless people in substitute for a police presence, but UA and city officials have both agreed that UA employees are providing services that fit California state's definition of "security activities" that normally would fall under state regulations.

According to their website, Urban Alchemy contracts with public and private organizations such as "the City & County of San Francisco, the City of Los Angeles, the City of Oakland, [...] the Tenderloin Community Benefit District [etc.]"

History

Urban Alchemy was founded in 2018 by Lena Miller and Bayron Wilson. At that time Lena Miller was the operator of the Hunters Point Family non-profit. The city of San Francisco gave its first contract of $36,000 to the fledgling company to clean some of the city's public toilets.

During the 2020 pandemic, UA was awarded a $10 million contract to operate San Francisco's Fulton Street sleeping site. In 2021 they were awarded a $2.3 million to operate a site on Jones Street, followed by a $5 million contract for a site on Gough Street. These contracts were awarded in a closed bid by the Department of Public Works under director Muhammad Nuru, who would be discredited and imprisoned for seven years under corruption charges in 2021.

In 2021 Jeff Kozitsky, the previous head of the Homelessness and Housing Department of San Francisco, quietly left his position there and joined the board of Urban Alchemy, and UA signed another contract to handle a sleeping site in Sausalito, CA.

UA began operating in Los Angeles in 2021 with a budget that has expanded to $14 million from the city and manages sanctioned homeless encampment sites there.

At one point their board also included advisory input from Ross Mirkarimi, the former sheriff of the City and County of San Francisco from 2012 to 2016, and a member of the SF Board of Supervisors from 2005 to 2012 as well as a founding member of the California Green Party.

In February 2022 UA was awarded another contract worth $18.7 million to run a shelter for up to 250 people on San Francisco's Post Street.

In 2023, the city of Portland, OR approved a $50 million contract for the firm to run three homeless encampments: the Clinton Triangle Temporary Alternative Shelter Site, the Peninsula Crossing Village and the Reedway Safe Rest Village.

Lawsuits:

Marin County Superior Court is currently reviewing a lawsuit submitted by Arthur Bruce against UA for "violence and drug trafficking" on the part of some of its members at the Sausalito, CA encampment overseen by the non-profit group. Arthur Bruce filed under the Racketeering Influence Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act for incidents inside Camp Cormorant.

In San Francisco in 2024, two lawsuits were filed by two former UA employees alleging sexual assault by the same supervisor. Kirkpatrick Tyler, the chief of government and community relations for the organization and former homelessness policy advisor to mayor Eric Garcetti of LA, described the accusations as "baseless and cynical." The accused supervisor was relocated to the Portland branch of the organization in another supervisory role.

Incidents and Controversy:

An Urban Alchemy worker in Los Angeles was documented using a sidewalk sprayer to harass sheltering people in tents. This led to an investigation of the incident by Kenneth Mejia, the controller of Los Angeles at the time, as well the requesting of financial information from Urban Alchemy. Eventually the organization refused further cooperation with Mejia's office and then sued the controller in order to stop a subpoena requesting protected information in UA's city contract. The UA employee in the video was rehired after being fired only a few days after the incident. Reporting extensions granted by the Internal Revenue Service to UA means much of its bookkeeping is not available to be seen by the public.

In 2022 the city auditor's office of Portland determined that UA had participated in unlawful lobbying of the Portland city government officials by allocating money over the $1000 limit to convince city officials to accept a contract, but this accusation was withdrawn in July 2024 with the auditor writing "[litigation] could cause a protracted dispute [...] which we do not believe to be in the public interest at this critical moment..." UA has still not registered with the city of Portland in their registry of lobbyists.

On February 23, 2022, a UA ambassador who remains unnamed was shot while trying to stop a drug deal between two people in the downtown of San Francisco, raising questions about the role of UA employees. Normally workers undertaking criminal prevention as an occupation would have to register with the state as security guards, but due to the gray area created by the status of UA as a non-profit organization there is no requirement to do so. Licensing security guards requires FBI background checks, but Urban Alchemy pursues practices of hiring employees who were previously incarcerated.

California requires extensive licensing processes for operators and employees of a "private patrol service," defined as "a person/company who agrees to furnish, or furnishes, a watchman, guard, patrolperson, or other person to protect persons or property or to prevent the theft, unlawful taking, loss [...of] property of any kind." Training and FBI background checks are a requirement for any patrol personnel. In San Francisco, city records indicate that the city police have not been enforcing registration of security companies and their employees, even though there is an ordinance requiring such registration.