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Homelessness remains a core focus of his, close to his heart as a journalist who cares passionately about the human condition. A survey of homeless individuals by Downtown Streets Team yielded one overwhelming response: they felt completely ignored as human beings. 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. Were a social enterprise that engages with situations where extreme poverty meets homelessness, mental illness and addiction. 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. The San Francisco Standard. As can be seen below, veterans homelessness spreads across generations. The people that complain and dislike the homeless for whatever reason.. Through emails, Clinebell detailed Urban Alchemys policies about employee drug use on the job and sex with campers. 5/3/2022. Urban Alchemy secured the bulk of its work during the pandemic. Including them as part of the community helps ensure norms are met. It offers emergency shelter, basic services and connections to housing for 130 men. We can give them the structure.. Miller attributed some lawsuits to growing pains as the group expanded without infrastructure it has now built and said others were bulls., Urban Alchemy grew fast and you make mistakes along the way, Miller said, adding that if there were real or serious complaints, we wouldnt have grown so fast. 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.. 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.. Fresh off tens of millions in local contracts, the Urban Alchemy founder now has her sights set nationwide. 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. 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. Additionally, UA has a policy that requires practitioners to maintain workplace boundaries, and that includes no fraternization, such as not hanging out at the work site while not on duty., Clinebell said that Urban Alchemy hasnt received any reports of staff using drugs at the Sausalito camp, yet he concedes someone has a memory of a person reporting at a Sausalito City Council meeting that Urban Alchemy staff were smoking weed.. 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. Gossage, a current camper, said Josh visited the camp within the last couple of weeks and told her that he is working for Urban Alchemy at a San Francisco location. 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.. This expansion, in Millers' view, is owed to an innovation that came out of her own study of trauma. Because a city this offbeat deserves a newsletter with some 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. 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. If you have no self-control, no discipline, or choose to take it personally, he said, this is not the job for you.. I did a line with an Urban Alchemy guy, Sarah Gossage, a current encampment resident, said. Josh treated me like trash. Although the pair mentioned they were with Urban Alchemy, Powelson said the men gave the impression they were homeless advocates from San Francisco. 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 . "I haven't had a dissatisfied customer yet," says Briggs. In this case, unfortunately, our staff was not informed of the pregnancy by the resident or her partner during intake nor were there any noticeably apparent signs that the resident was pregnant, Tyler said. Training consists of two days in class, followed by a week in the field. Students also learn that disrespect, defiance, doing drugs and showing up late will make you unsuccessful at Urban Alchemy, Hammonds said. Each response includes a licensed mental health worker. She escaped Florida after college and now lives in Sausalito with her Chiweenie and an assortment of foster dogs. But another councilmember who plans to open safe camping sites, Joe Buscaino, says enforcement is part of the point. Los Angeles has opened its first government-run homeless encampment on a quiet, commercial block beside the 101 freeway in East Hollywood. Reduce the number of homelessness-related calls to dispatch, in areas where the CART program's community-strengthening interventions have occurred. We know what it means to be dismissed and disrespected. In general, the countys coordinated entry system prioritizes people based on a vulnerability index that measures physical and mental health. When we arrived on the scene, the Tenderloin faced an unmanageable problem with littering. Is Los Angeles' Sweep of a Homeless Encampment the Wave of the Future? This academic faction has a narrative that is made up. City Controller Ron Galperin said that while the East Hollywood safe camping pilot is expensive, the costs support a professional staff skilled in case management, as well as necessary sanitation and security services. 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. The organization holds $62 million in contracts in San Francisco while also providing homeless services in a half-dozen cities. As the Bayview Vehicle Triage Center reaches is first anniversary, questions remain over its success in meeting SFs shelter needs. When the pandemic scrambled the city's homelessness strategy, Urban Alchemy parlayed the hygiene and vehicle work into much more. For longtime Bayview resident Yvonne Dillon, the nonprofits Miller has founded have been a blessing for the area because they provided jobs for people who had a hard time finding work. Nonprofits land funding to help Austin's homeless people of color Many . In February, Miller said, a drug dealer shot an Urban Alchemy worker who had told the dealer to stop selling outside a city-run tent encampment. ADVERTISING Advertise Legal Notices Obituaries Writing An Obituary Submit an Obituary, COMPANY INFO Job Opportunities Privacy PolicyTerms of Service, What to Include in Your Marin County Obituary, Nikki Silverstein is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Pacific Sun since 2005. Urban Alchemy works with long-term offenders, integrating them back into society in order to prevent them from experiencing homelessness. A parking lot has been turned into a homeless encampment that offers 24-hour security and free meals. There was a lot more anonymity and a lot more opportunity for exploitation. If our 100% San Francisco journalism helps you make sense of your city's changes and crises, please make a tax-deductible donation . LA opens its first government-run homeless encampment. While campers who come into the lot will still be without permanent housing, Urban Alchemy CEO Lena Miller says this type of site can be a first step towards that goal. A stillborn baby was found in the port-a-potty of a city-sanctioned homeless encampment last January, the San Francisco Fire Department confirmed to The Standard. A majority of employees are people of color, and some have been homeless. Some of Urban Alchemys workers have been surprised at the depth of the crisis they are facing in the Tenderloin. 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. Some have brooms and plastic trash bags. LA County sheriff's recruits graduate months after Whittier crash, Highways into the San Bernardino Mountains are closed to drivers, LA County passes motion requiring retrofit of some buildings by 2033. Mallory Moench (she/her) and Kevin Fagan (he/him) are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Urban Alchemy first came to Los Angeles in 2020 as part of an effort to provide showers, handwashing stations, and cleaning to Skid Row. Drugs arent Cooks only problem, according to the campers who have made other serious allegations against the employee. So doing nothing also costs a lot of money.. Once the city increased the contract, we got all these new Urban Alchemy people coming and going, Powelson said. DM B. Powelson said he reported drug use by Urban Alchemy staff to Josh, who was a shift supervisor. Dawn Staley thinks so, Girls basketball: Webutuck grabs momentum, tops Manor for Class D title. Urban Alchemy is a peaceful and supportive presence, inviting communities to rebuild and restore a sense of pride . 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. She joined The San Francisco Chronicle in 2019 to report on business and has also written about wildfires, transportation and the coronavirus pandemic. LOS. An employee who messes up may get another chance. So far, cities are willing to take the risks. Los Angeles is seeking answers to the homeless crisis. The organization has created 24 safe and clean public toilets in Tenderloin and other parts of San Francisco with high homeless populations and given homeless individuals jobs cleaning and maintaining those toilets, BART stations, the Civic Center area, downtown streets, and parks. The site closed in June 2022 after operating for a little over two years. Based on Cooks Facebook profile, it appears he still works at Urban Alchemy; however, he is no longer on duty in the Sausalito encampment. The Lee County Homeless Coalition reports 394 people were homeless on the night of Jan. 26, 2021 when volunteers fanned the community to conduct the annual "point in time" surveys, according . Heres what we know. The nonprofits unusual slogan is No fuckery., What were trying to do, co-founder and CEO Lena Miller said in an interview, is just make spaces safe and clean and raise the vibration, so to speak, in areas that in the past have been dirty and scary, particularly for people who are vulnerable.. If you are in need of emergency shelter, please contact the Union County 24 Hour Homeless Emergency Response Hotline at 2-1-1. Hammonds, who trains other formerly incarcerated people to help keep the peace, checks on a person sitting on the sidewalk on Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin. The campsite, he said, offers a safer place to sleep than the streets. A turd. Give people the opportunity to take a shower, get them off the street, and give them a sense of hope and belonging., Another man, DJ Woods, agreed. I believe it provides a good service for the community, said one, who only gave his first name, Eugene. Service providers raise concerns about the new manager of Austin's Sidewalks once crowded with people doing or selling drugs are now more passable, these people say. An increasingly bipartisan chorus is asking where all the money goes for the states homeless crisis. The current contract expires on June 25. You can camp, sleep, lie anywhere and everywhere that you so deem., He added, I've connected a lot of people to resources, to housing, and sometimes it was through the booking process.. Miller says this is the kind of fresh approach public officials have been drawn to when deciding to hire Urban Alchemy to provide security services for public toilets, street corners, BART elevators and homeless facilities, in addition to picking up trash. Now, faced with a ballooning homelessness crisis and a federal judge demanding emergency action, LA officials are embracing the concept. 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. Portraying difficult subjects in art can be juicy and colorful, Culver City eliminates honors English in attempt to reach racial equity, LAs Black students see fewer cops, more resources 2 years into achievement plan. New East Hollywood government-run homeless encampment to offer - KCRW Washington, DC 20001-3736, Phone: 202-898-2444 Entry level positions for Urban Alchemy, like the Clean Teams, have become a familiar site in downtown Los Angeles, Venice and Hollywood. 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 stations are dropped off and picked up daily by United. Wounded Warriors Collier County opens second house for homeless veterans The police are brought in to offer deescalation training, helping to establish a relationship between law enforcement and employees of Urban Alchemy. Employees called 911 nearly 300 times during the same time period. 'Urban Alchemy' responds to LA's homeless crisis 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. Urban Alchemy made their first contact with Sausalitos 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. In terms of getting to the other side of it, that's not my lane. Were able to do this because we share a special bond with societys most vulnerable and because we see ourselves in their struggle. Right now in the City of Los Angeles, it's a free-for-all, said Buscaino, who is a former LAPD officer. 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. Some unhoused people and their advocates, including Tracey Mixon, a formerly homeless Tenderloin resident who works with the Coalition on Homelessness, complain that some employees have gotten verbally or physically aggressive to make people move or stop problematic behavior. Ian Clark-Johnson and Loving Lou Hammonds told the campers they came to help and make them more comfortable. The Pacific Sun contacted Cook through Facebook for comment on the allegations. One organization the city is working with, Urban. David Sjostedt can be reached at [emailprotected]. Venice and Hollywood Piloting Expanded Unarmed Response to Non This expansion, in Millers view, is owed to an innovation that came out of her own study of trauma. Basically like a franchise model, Miller said in a radio interview last year. People like Ronda Briggs, who was once homeless, hope to provide non-emergency help, homeless outreach and referrals to supportive services. Urban Alchemy responds to LA's homeless crisis, uses community-led I can attest to the fact the meth was real., Kennedy said he knows two Urban Alchemy practitioners who brought meth into the camp, although neither works at the Sausalito location any longer. We provide a safe community for people to be in, so they're not out on the streets, said Miller. 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. When a neighborhood, street or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. | Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, By clicking Subscribe you confirm you have read and agree to our. Miller pointed to their high levels of emotional intelligence, their ability to read people, and their ability to interact with different kinds of people. When a neighborhood, street or intersection earns a reputation as a place to avoid, we turn it around. Some have a trash can on wheels. But some advocates worry that officials are investing too much in The Armenian American community has been active in demanding for the United States to be on the right side of history, says Shant Sahakian, executive director of the After years of debate, Californias State Board of Education voted last month to adopt an ethnic studies model curriculum for K-12. Copyright 2023 KABC Television, LLC. 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. I was going to hit him, but UA escorted him off the property.. The organization holds $62 million in contracts in San Francisco while also providing homeless services in a half-dozen cities. Steveo Cook, an Urban Alchemy staff member, told Kennedy he could bring in the really good meth.. A UA employee fucked [a female camper] in the tent next to the tent Im in, Deschamps said. When asked about the stories of assault, harassment and misdeeds at various projects, Miller said they paint an inaccurate picture and distract from the good Urban Alchemy has done. But at Urban Alchemy, their skills are sought-after. Hammonds admitted that such incidents have occurred, despite training that if you put your hands on someone, you lose your job.. 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. 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. Urban Alchemy responds to LA's homeless crisis, uses community-led Alejandro Sanchez, who is on the clean team explains their approach. Council weighs 'calculated risk' with new management of - impact To date, Downtown Streets Team has secured over 1,900 jobs and homes for people. Urban Alchemy practitioners assemble before starting their shift at 5 a.m. She has taken these young men, embraced them, given them a job to do when they get out of jail.. The simple action of donning a yellow shirt and cleaning the community restores their dignity as people and members of their community. Within seconds, he blocked all further communication. 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. Lee and Collier saw dip in homelessness in 2020 but officials caution The woman who spent time in the bushes with Josh had witnessed the incident and explained to the police what had occurred. Because a city this offbeat deserves a newsletter with some Theres a lot of training, she said. Campers get entered into the countys database for matching unhoused people with social services, called the coordinated entry system. Urban Alchemy said its employees de-escalated 54,000 potentially dangerous situations in the Tenderloin and Mid-Market by calming a mental health crisis or preventing a fight, for example, during the 10 months ending in April. An hour after the interaction with Snider, Hammonds rolled a woman in a wheelchair out of the middle of Market Street, where she was screaming and refusing to move, and into a cafe. That "super power" is needed to work the streets of LA says Kirkpatrick Tyler, the Chief of Government-Community Affairs for Urban Alchemy. It was along the lines of the right answer dont be confrontational. 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. 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. And the Biden administration, responding to a national surge of homicides, is investing $500 million in community violence intervention. 2023 KCRW All Rights Reserved. But for decades it was politically unpopular and considered radical. . The . 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. 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.. The four-bedroom residence serves as . 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. Urban Alchemy saved 85 lives in 2018, through Narcan deployment, which brings back people from drug overdoses, and providing water to dehydrated people. So we don't want to pick up anything that's theirs," says Sanchez. Criticisms of Urban Alchemy run the gamut, from being a mercenary organization to inadequate staff training. He asked if I want to do a line and I said sure. Throughout much of that period, Mike and Joseph oversaw the camp and helped move the encampment from downtown Sausalito to Marinship Park last June. Miller said Urban Alchemy sends a supervisor to investigate every complaint. Downtown Streets Team employs local homeless populations to clean community spaces in San Jose and San Francisco. During training, students learn Urban Alchemys seven values respect, integrity, empowerment, empathy, self-discipline, self-control and self-esteem. I like them, Ken Kennedy, a camper who is in the process of leaving the Sausalito encampment, said.