Is City Alchemy able to deal with San Francisco 911 calls?

It was revealed last Friday night that a former Urban Alchemy employee had been charged with attempted murder after he allegedly shot dead a man during a 15-minute break from work at a Polk Street homeless shelter in November. According to the nonprofit, which hires mostly people of color who have experienced incarceration, the employee was fired shortly thereafter for not showing up for work and was unaware of his arrest until late January.

It is not always appropriate to blame the employer for the behavior of his employees. For example, if a Target employee were accused of the same crime, their workplace wouldn’t necessarily be a story. But earlier this month, the city of San Francisco selected Urban Alchemy in a competitive bidding process to operate its burgeoning Community Response Team, a year-long $2.75 million police alternative that would handle low-level homelessness calls coming in through 911 .

Is it disqualifying that an employee of a nonprofit tasked with de-escalating violence and keeping the peace could have attempted to kill someone during a hiatus?

Not at all, according to Kirkpatrick Tyler, chief of community affairs at Urban Alchemy.

“This incident had nothing to do with Urban Alchemy,” he told me in an interview. “That (was) a personal issue that existed before he was hired. He had only been hired two months ago.”

But the shooting is just one of many damning incidents the organization has allegedly been involved in in recent years as its presence has grown in San Francisco and across the country. Urban Alchemy faces multiple lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, unpaid overtime, and forcibly relocating people without cause. Two employees were shot dead in the tenderloin last year, raising concerns about putting them in dangerous scenarios without proper training. There’s the recently controversial uniform selection that flooded the mid-market and tenderloin with Urban Alchemy employees in army camouflage.

As a reporter for articles, I regularly speak to homeless people, 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 stories of rampant sexual harassment, such as whistling and shouting in the street. A friend of mine and resident of Tenderloin, Mary Kay Chin, told me that she often crosses the street when she sees Urban Alchemy workers and feels safer walking among the drug dealers.

Her large presence in the neighborhood confuses her.

“Who do you serve?” she asked when I spoke to her earlier this month.

That’s a fair question, especially considering the organization now holds $62 million worth of city contracts, much of which it secured during the pandemic. In recent years, the city has awarded Urban Alchemy several no-bid contracts, paying them to do everything from managing shelters and sanctioned camps to patrolling the streets.

Critics say the organization too often fails to hold its employees accountable – and the fact that workers don’t wear name tags on the street makes it difficult for the public to do so. Urban Alchemy’s Tyler said the organization takes complaints seriously — although it notes many are unfounded. The best way to file a complaint in San Francisco, he said, is to go to their offices at 1035 Market St. and speak to a supervisor.

However, it’s hard to imagine that people who claim to have been harassed or worsened by Urban Alchemy employees would feel comfortable enough to stop by and complain, especially if they live in a shelter manned by the organization.

Still, Urban Alchemy believes it’s the best group for making low-level 911 calls. His leadership argues that time in prison, an experience shared by most of his staff, builds emotional intelligence and situational awareness. Many also have the lived experience of homelessness that Urban Alchemy’s clients often face.

They also have other experiences: In late 2021, Urban Alchemy was selected to take on the Los Angeles crisis and incident response community Led engagement program, which also reroutes calls that aren’t homelessness-related emergencies. It does so in partnership with nonprofit housing organization Home at Last, which provides psychiatrists to the team. Urban Alchemy staff handles de-escalation, data reporting, and home transfers.

“The idea that we’re kind of new to this or that we’re kind of putting the cart before the horse is just not true,” Tyler said. “We’re confident because we have infrastructure that we can prove has been effective over the last year and a half.”

But what is “effective” in these alternative police pilot programs is still being worked out. And in the case of Urban Alchemy, there’s an uncomfortable lack of transparency. Los Angeles’ crisis program is not listed on its website. Neither does the board of Urban Alchemy. That, coupled with the worrying amount of allegations of misconduct, has left many with skepticism about awarding another contract in San Francisco.

Urban Alchemy’s goal of providing opportunities for ex-prisoners is noble and important. But that doesn’t relieve the need for solid training and support for employees — and accountability and transparency when things go wrong.

More than ever, San Francisco seems to be becoming a powder keg where tensions between accommodated and non-accommodated residents can easily explode into violence. The last thing this city can afford is for the organization tasked with de-escalating these conflicts to light the match.

Reach Nuala Bishari: nuala.bishari@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @NualaBishari

Clarification: A previous version of this story did not state that Urban Alchemy won the Community Response Team contract through a competitive urban contract bidding process. It was also stated that the shooting happened in December when it took place on November 3.