Two days after the Clinton Triangle Temporary Alternative Shelter Site, or TASS, opened in Portland, the site manager, Urban Alchemy, quietly settled a $1 million class action lawsuit brought forth by former employees in California.
The settlement resulted from one of at least six lawsuits filed against the organization since its founding in 2018. At Urban Alchemy-run sites in Portland, residents report concerns for the well-being of staff members working in the cold while simultaneously reporting a troubling power imbalance between staff and residents. Urban Alchemy says it hires formerly incarcerated individuals because they bring raw skills like empathy, situational awareness and emotional intelligence to the work of homeless services.
This is part 2 of stories covering the San Francisco nonprofit contracted to run Portland’s temporary shelter sites. Read Part 1: Urban Alchemy structure, funding and admission here.
“'If people gained skills to build rocket ships in prison, then we would have been a rocket ship company,'” Urban Alchemy CEO Lena Miller often says, according to Kirkpatrick Tyler, Urban Alchemy’s chief of government and community affairs.
Critics suggest Urban Alchemy’s altruistic messaging around helping formerly incarcerated people readjust is a smokescreen, and its minimal training and treatment of staff, as described in lawsuits, falls short of addressing the needs of those impacted by the criminal justice system. Instead, critics assert the organization simply identified an easily exploited workforce.
Lawsuit settlement
Court documents reveal Urban Alchemy settled the class action lawsuit July 27. The complaint, filed in December 2020 by an individual on behalf of a class of employees, said the organization failed to pay overtime wages, did not provide breaks and failed to pay minimum wages, saying Urban Alchemy “systematically failed to correctly calculate and record overtime compensation for overtime worked.”
The judge ruled the terms of the settlement were “fair, reasonable, and adequate to the Settlement Class,” saying the claims made by the class representative were typical of others employed by Urban Alchemy. While the plaintiff maintained the claims had merit, Urban Alchemy held the allegations had no merit. The agreement, ordered by the judge, was a compromise of those disputed claims, according to court documents.
The settlement did not require Urban Alchemy to admit wrongdoing, halting a trial scheduled for Feb. 13, 2024, according to court records.
Urban Alchemy representatives did not respond to Street Roots’ multiple requests for comment at the time of publishing.
Since its founding in 2018, Urban Alchemy defended itself against multiple lawsuits in California, and public records show seven Private Attorneys General Act, or PAGA, complaints were filed against Urban Alchemy from 2020 to 2023. PAGA authorizes aggrieved employees to file lawsuits to recover civil penalties resulting from violations of the California labor code, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations.
When Street Roots first asked about previously reported stories highlighting complaints raised about Urban Alchemy sites in California, Tyler denied allegations, saying the complaints are typically due to the local community resisting changes to its entrenched dynamics.
“When we show up, there are folks who have things in place that are disrupted, and sometimes that disruption is met with, you know, like a falsified story,” Tyler told Street Roots Nov. 28.
However, including legal fees, the settlement totaled nearly $1 million, according to court records. A receptionist at the law firm representing the plaintiff confirmed the case was settled and payments were being distributed.
The settlement is not the last in a string of legal troubles. Another class action lawsuit, filed Oct. 3, alleges similar labor violations in San Francisco. The complaint alleges the defendant, Urban Alchemy, violated unfair competition law.
“Specifically, Defendants have gained an unfair advantage over other similarly situated businesses by unlawfully reducing their overhead costs by not paying their employees what they are owed,” the complaint alleges.
Concerned residents
Street Roots spoke with several homeless Portlanders currently or formerly living at Urban Alchemy-run sites to hear their experiences and concerns with living at the sites. They asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.
One homeless Portlander who spoke to Street Roots said they feel concerned for the well-being of Urban Alchemy staff, particularly as the weather has cooled. They reported staff often sits outside in cold weather with no gloves or coats — just work-provided Urban Alchemy hoodies.
“Those are human lives, too,” they said. “I don't want to see anybody end up with irreparable health damage.”
Still, multiple homeless Portlanders living at Clinton Triangle reported feeling a power imbalance with some Urban Alchemy staff members, despite concern for their well-being.
One said they overheard a staff member complaining about not being viewed as holding a position of power, an assertion the homeless Portlander said misses the point.
“We don't need you to be in a position of power,” the homeless Portlander said. “You're supposed to be here helping people.”
Second chance
Tyler said 96% of Urban Alchemy employees — or “practitioners” as they’re referred to internally — are formerly incarcerated, formerly homeless, or both. Urban Alchemy’s hiring practices are a central piece of its business model, as it works with a “different workforce with a different skill set” than that of other local organizations, according to Tyler. He noted the importance of offering opportunities for people exiting incarceration or homelessness but said Urban Alchemy is not simply a charity organization.
“Formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly long-term offenders, bring what in the professional world we would call ‘transferable skills’ to the work of traumatized individuals and communities,” Tyler said.
Regardless of Urban Alchemy’s intent, the nationwide problem of formerly incarcerated people needing steady work is real.
A 2021 Bureau of Justice Statistics report found 33% of formerly incarcerated individuals in the United States found no employment over four years after their release, and no more than 40% were employed at a given time, according to the report.
Those who found a job made an average of 84 cents for every dollar of the U.S. median wage, according to analysis by the nonprofit research organization Prison Policy Initiative. It also cautioned harsh post-prison conditions often funnel formerly incarcerated people into the least desirable jobs.
“Businesses have found a way to capitalize on the desperation of applicants with conviction histories and exploit the fact that these individuals have less bargaining power to demand changes in conditions of employment, such as better wages, benefits and protections,” the Prison Policy Initiative analysis found. “This results in lower overall wages and more harmful working conditions in certain industries.”
That power imbalance adds fuel to critics’ concerns Urban Alchemy employs an underpaid workforce, leaving them under-trained for a highly specialized job.
Tyler said staff undergo an intensive two-week training program when they start working with Urban Alchemy, including basics like clocking in and other basic shelter training. The training extends to how to work with people from diverse backgrounds, provide trauma-informed care and promote harm reduction principles, according to Tyler.
“It really is about understanding the impact and the lives of those that we’re there to serve,” Tyler said.
Power in villages
Throughout 2020 and 2021, PSU's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, or HRAC, interviewed and surveyed staff members, designers, builders, neighbors and people living in different “villages” in Portland for a report on various village models. Researchers studied a wide swath of village models, from the country’s first city-sanctioned village in 2004, Dignity Village, to the St. Johns Village, run by Do Good Multnomah since 2021.
The report, released in 2022, found 69% of villagers overall preferred to share decision-making in a village, while 26% said that only villagers should determine what happens in the village.
Marisa Zapata, HRAC director, said early on, researchers assumed people living in villages would prefer to live in a village with a self-governance model but were surprised to find that was not necessarily the case.
“People, in a lot of cases, were fine to have nonprofits being more responsible for running the site,” she said. “They still wanted a say, though, and they wanted transparency in what was happening.”
Zapata stressed the importance of autonomy but said the research suggests some people are happy to live in a village where they're not fully engaged in a self-governance model, while some prefer to have more of a say.
She said regardless of the model, it is important to affirm human dignity and allow people to live their lives.
For people staying in temporary shelters, the sense of autonomy only goes so far, as evidenced by guidelines of the Urban Alchemy-run Reedway Safe Rest Village.
“Guests staying at this site do not have tenancy rights,” according to community guidelines. “You understand that this program creates no right or interest enforceable under Oregon or Portland landlord-tenant laws.”
Residents’ lack of autonomy and rights within Urban Alchemy camps has created friction.
Multiple homeless Portlanders living at Urban Alchemy sites said staff repeatedly knocks on their doors, creating discomfort as they try to go about their daily lives.
Tyler confirmed the practice, saying the wellness checks are designed for guest safety.
“Every 15, sometimes to 30 minutes, particularly when we know that there are residents that are struggling with substance abuse, somebody will check on them to make sure that they are still safe,” Tyler said. “Also, our teams are trained to do overdose reversal, Narcan application and CPR.”
While Narcan, the brand name of naloxone, is proven to save people from overdose, some residents told Street Roots their experience with staff knocking on their doors, and the inconsistency in practice, is disruptive to their sense of peace.
“They've said every hour on the hour; some of them have said a couple of times a shift,” one Clinton Triangle resident said. “It just depends on which human being you happen to speak to, I guess.”
Wellness checks are a common practice in carceral and behavioral health settings, and critics say the consistent observation removes autonomy from people needing a place to rest. Oregon law requires correctional facilities to conduct personal inspections a minimum of once per hour.
Security measures
The city of Portland frequently references its TASS location as an alternative to unsanctioned sleeping on public property, while the need for shelter vastly outweighs shelter capacity in Multnomah County.
“The TASS sites would be an example of a humane alternative,” Wheeler said at a press conference Oct. 30. “They are actually pods. They have heating, they have air conditioning. (Homeless Portlanders) have access to services and case management, they have access to food, they have access to other community services. So, for me, that's much better than living in a potentially dangerous, squalid and unsafe environment.”
Multnomah County and the city have nearly 2,700 shelter units available — enough for just 39% of the 6,300 homeless Multnomah County residents counted in the 2023 Point-in-Time Count, which the county and service providers believe is a substantial undercount. More than 180 people live at the Clinton Triangle TASS, according to the city’s dashboard.
For those who do make it inside, the reviews are mixed.
One homeless Portlander who spoke to Street Roots said they felt happier and more motivated when they first moved into Clinton Triangle but grew tired of Urban Alchemy staff consistently knocking on their door and looking through the window into their pod. When they confronted the staff about their discomfort, they denied looking in, saying they were “trying to fix something” despite the pod having no issues.
The homeless Portlander reported feeling uncomfortable as staff gave them unwanted attention, bordering on sexual harassment.
When asked about the complaint process, no homeless Portlander who spoke to Street Roots knew the proper channels for filing a complaint.
One complaint obtained by Street Roots alleges the security measures go too far. The complaint, sent through a form on Wheeler’s website rather than the Urban Alchemy complaint form, said multiple staff members circled them inside the site, near a disabled bathroom and took turns mocking them, saying they were lying about their disability. The complaint alleged staff ultimately exited them from the site and refused to return their personal belongings.
Urban Alchemy representatives did not respond to Street Roots’ multiple requests for comment at the time of publishing, but the city acknowledged the incident, saying the homeless Portlander was ultimately returned to Clinton Triangle and continued to engage with on-site service providers.
“Our team acted promptly, ensuring (the person) was reintegrated into the TASS and continued on (their) path towards housing. We are committed to supporting (them) through this journey, addressing (their) needs with care and sensitivity.”
The homeless Portlander told Street Roots when they returned to the site, a staff member escorted them back to their pod, offering a warning.
“'Don’t write the mayor again,'” the staff member said, according to the homeless Portlander.
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