Urban Alchemy, the San Francisco-based nonprofit that uses civilian “ambassadors” to help address public drug use, reach out to unhoused people, and manage several shelter sites around the Bay Area, is once again under legal fire for alleged exploitation and illegal activities at one of its facilities.
In a lawsuit filed Feb. 8, plaintiff Arthur Bruce alleges that he was assaulted by an Urban Alchemy employee while residing at a camp for unhoused people in Sausalito. Bruce claims that it was in retaliation for his speaking out about wrongdoings by UA staff, including alleged sexual exploitation of unhoused women and the sale and use of drugs on-site. He is representing himself in the suit.
UA is also a major presence in San Francisco, where its practitioners help clean, patrol and manage a variety of areas, from downtown streets to a tiny-home facility at 33 Gough St. The nonprofit was founded here, evolving out of a similar project started by Lena Miller, founder and CEO of UA, in Bayview.
The nonprofit is known for hiring formerly unhoused and incarcerated employees, then training them to interact with people on the street and defuse potential conflicts. It now operates in multiple cities along the West Coast and touts more than $51 million in annual revenue, per its 2022 tax filings.
Bruce has been a plaintiff in two prior lawsuits that involve the Sausalito encampment for unhoused people. The first iteration of the site, known by residents as “Camp Cormorant,” grew at Dunphy Park before the city of Sausalito cracked down in June 2021.
Bruce, along with eight other plaintiffs, had sued the city in February 2021 in order to prevent the demolition of the site and relocation of its roughly 35 residents. Despite winning a temporary injunction on certain kinds of enforcement, the residents were ultimately pushed in June to a second site, known as Marinship Park, further north along the water in a more industrial area.
It’s after this move that Bruce alleges he was assaulted. In his new suit, Bruce states that he spoke out in the media in early February 2022, alleging UA employees were sexually exploiting female residents at the camp. Bruce then claims that a site supervisor, Josh Taylor, and an employee identified only as “Troy” took note of his allegations. They retaliated by evicting Bruce from the camp, he says, which he dealt with by sleeping in an adjacent parking lot instead.
Then, on Feb. 10, Bruce claims that Troy approached his camper-bed trailer, lobbed expletives at him, and ultimately punched him, sending Bruce to the ground and spraining his wrist. The suit further alleges that other employees including Taylor, Troy, Steveo Cook and a person identified as “Tim” were involved in sexual exploitation of camp residents and the distribution of methamphetamine.
The suit also names UA leadership, including Miller and director of community-based safety Louie Hammonds, who manages all staff training, claiming they were complicit in the wrongdoing.
Bruce did not return multiple phone calls for elaboration. In an emailed statement to Gazetteer, Urban Alchemy’s Miller noted that the nonprofit touts an “innovative community-based model of care and safety” that “leads with a trauma-informed approach by those who are often counted out by society.”
“Our practitioners all have a unique superpower to connect with and serve those experiencing trauma and crisis, and work daily to help people be their best selves no matter the circumstance. Unfortunately, people and organizations bring and make frivolous allegations and lawsuits against us because they believe they can take advantage of a trust deficit that exists in society for the people we employ, particularly Black and brown men,” Miller says. “When we make a mistake, we own it. But, we will never let people or organizations try to shake us down or extort us. We will always vigorously defend ourselves and our organization when we are in the right because our people are doing hard work, so we will work hard to protect them.”
Today, the camp at Marinship Park is no more. In August 2022, the city of Sausalito announced it would move forward with plans to shut down the site permanently after settling by paying $18,000 to each of the nine plaintiffs in Sausalito Homeless Union v. City of Sausalito et. al., and offering shelter to all remaining encampment residents.
Bruce’s allegations in his 2024 suit echo statements made by other encampment residents in the past. In 2022, the Marin County-based media outlet Pacific Sun spoke with more than 10 current and past residents at the camp, who alleged sexual exploitation of unhoused women and on-site drug use facilitated by Urban Alchemy employees.
Elsewhere, Tracey Mixon, a formerly unhoused resident of the Tenderloin who collaborates with the advocacy group Coalition on Homelessness, also told the Chronicle in 2022 that UA employees have gotten verbally and physically aggressive with people on the street.
(One example: “Mike,” a UA practitioner well-known by residents of the Sausalito camp, was caught on camera in 2022 calling a woman a “bitch” and “whore” as they bickered. He was reportedly transferred from Marinship Park to a different UA site after the incident.)
Currently, UA is seeing two other lawsuits from female employees who allege they were victimized in a campaign of sexual harassment by a supervisor. The alleged perpetrator, Tracey Webb, was reportedly transferred by UA leadership to another site in southeast Portland.
A male employee at that site had already been reported for alleged sexual coercion and harassment by a 23-year-old woman; UA stated that an internal investigation had led to the conclusion that the allegation was “unsubstantiated.”
Last year, UA had to pay a settlement to a trans activist who was forced to move by UA employees while she was praying in U.N. Plaza. The City of San Francisco, the defendant in the case, stated it would force policy and training changes at UA. UA also settled a lawsuit, brought by former employees, that detailed alleged organizational conflicts and wage theft within the nonprofit.
UA says that all incidents and complaints are reviewed by a supervisor, and that wrongdoing is corrected by discipline and additional training, or by firing if the conduct is “egregious.”
