City Leaders and Tenderloin Vow to ‘Fight’ for Urban Alchemy After Employee Shot While Working

After an Urban Alchemy community ambassador was fatally shot on the job last month, San Francisco lawmakers on Tuesday rallied behind the nonprofit, whose future role in the city has been in question in recent months.

City leaders joined about 100 members of the Tenderloin community on the steps of City Hall to pay tribute to Joey Alexander, who was shot just a few hundred feet away in front of the city’s main library after asking a man to stop using drugs on the street.

They paid tribute to Alexander’s life and service, as well as to the mission of the nonprofit, which has contracted with the city since 2018 to patrol and clean up some of its roughest downtown streets.

“We cannot deliver on safe and clean streets in the Tenderloin without Urban Alchemy, full stop,” said Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the neighborhood.

Mayor Daniel Lurie, District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and other city supervisors also praised the ambassadors’ ability to connect with Tenderloin residents, aid in school children’s safe passage through the neighborhood and drive reductions in crime and drug use on the streets they patrol.

Jenkins said that she was moved looking out at the throng of Urban Alchemy ambassadors gathered for the event, wearing their identifiable black and yellow branded vests.

“[I see] a beautiful representation — of mostly Black men — in front of me with those vests on, working, contributing, giving back to our city,” she said, noting that the nonprofit’s employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated people, including Alexander, can have a major impact on reducing recidivism.

“Every day, ambassadors [from] Urban Alchemy work alongside San Francisco police officers, our neighborhood street teams and service providers, helping connect people in crisis to care, supporting first responders and ensuring that our neighborhoods are welcoming places for everyone,” Lurie said. “That work, your work, is so important.”

Whether Urban Alchemy’s ambassador work with the city — which currently extends through the end of the year — will continue in its current capacity, though, is somewhat uncertain.

The role of the nonprofit has expanded to include operating safe RV parking sites and homeless shelters in recent years, but its ambassador contract could be impacted by changes to the city’s larger approach to street safety work.

In 2023, a Department of Emergency Management report showed that there were at least 34 different ambassador programs, run by seven nonprofits and even more “community benefit districts,” which were awarded grants by twelve government agencies to operate across the city.

Lurie spokesperson Charles Lutvak said that strategically, it makes more sense to have one department overseeing all of the work around street conditions.

The city is phasing out its own Community Ambassador Program through the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs in 2027, and the Mayor’s office has consolidated all street ambassador contracts under DEM, which will decide which organizations win future bids.

Earlier this month, the agency issued a request for proposals for contractors to run a “Community Safety Ambassador Program,” which it said would provide “ongoing deployment of a specialized and highly trained community safety ambassador program” along 12 corridors, including the Tenderloin and Civic Center areas.

The restructuring comes after the city controller’s office placed Urban Alchemy under review over financial issues, and after the nonprofit lost a key contract to staff Bay Area Rapid Transit bathrooms and elevators in the city with its ambassadors. Separately, Supervisor Connie Chan called for an audit of its previous overspending last November.

But the outpouring of support for the organization — and data that shows an overall 50% reduction in crime and 80% reduction in drug-related crime where it operates — was a “loud and clear” indicator of its impact, Mahmood said Tuesday.

“We’re urging the mayor’s office to include Urban Alchemy as part of the long-term plan,” he said. “We still don’t know the long-term details of what’s going to happen in years to come.

“We have seen the data of how they impact this neighborhood, and so we’re going to fight like hell to ensure that our communities still continue to feel safe,” he continued.