Felon-Operated Portland Homeless Village Has Local Residents Outraged

The village is operated by Urban Alchemy, a California-based nonprofit awarded a 5-year, $50 million contract in April to serve homeless villages for Portland.

The organization claims to have 28 contracts totaling $61 million in four cities with nine government agencies. However, neighbors have reported that the village has not improved the situation and are living in a state of anxiety due to the high level of crime in the area.

June 14, 2023

George Siebert, a resident of University Park, where the village is located, said, "Life is pretty miserable because we live in a kind of anxiety. We are on the edge every time somebody walks by." Siebert has witnessed drug use on his property, theft of his water, and fighting on the way to or from the Safe Rest Village.

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Other neighbors have shared security videos showing "known drug dealers" openly selling drugs on the curb outside their homes in broad daylight. Chrisanne Boles, another neighbor, said, "The ones that are really homeless and not doing the drugs, I have compassion for them. These ones right here, I have no compassion. They're not trying to help themselves. I've called the cops. The cops don't do nothing, right? What can they do?"

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Urban Alchemy, the organization that operates the homeless village, is staffed by convicted felons. Its website states, "Most of our team have served life sentences in prison. They've spent 20+ years in a confined environment where their survival depends on their ability to read people in unpredictable situations. This teaches them instincts that you can't learn in a classroom." In March, it was revealed that an employee at Urban Alchemy's San Francisco branch allegedly shot someone while on a break during a shift outside one of the organization's homeless shelters in November 2022.

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Kirkpatrick Tyler, Urban Alchemy's Chief of Government and Community Affairs, told KATU in a statement regarding the problems at the Safe Rest Village: "The Peninsula Crossing Safe Rest Village is providing life-saving housing and services to 68 Portlanders who were suffering on the street just a week ago. Urban Alchemy is proud of the work we have done in collaboration with the City of Portland to bring it online. We are taking immediate steps to add two more practitioners per shift to provide safety and service monitoring and engage the areas surrounding the safe sleep to determine illicit activity."

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June 14, 2023

However, Siebert called Urban Alchemy's response "weak," adding, "I wish they would move in here and spend a few nights here to get a picture of it." He told KATU that neither the city nor Urban Alchemy has ever contacted him and didn't include his home, which is just 5 feet away from the facility in the village's site layout.

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A spokeswoman for the city told the outlet in a statement, "The City has been speaking with neighbors throughout the week and are aware of their concerns. We are actively working with other bureaus and partners, including Urban Alchemy, to address current and ongoing needs. We have learned a great deal from opening other Safe Rest Villages, yet we know that every site is unique and requires us to adapt our approaches to the local communities. We are confident that this village will provide benefits to people experiencing homelessness and to the surrounding community."

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Portland has also suffered massive population loss since 2020. According to Census data, the city lost the sixth-most number of people of any city in the U.S. last year, losing 8,308 people from July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022.

The decline comes after Rose City saw 15 straight years of growth amid a massive crime wave since the city became the epicenter of the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots. Recently, the city agreed to remove homeless tents and debris from sidewalks after residents sued the city for violating the federal Americans with Disabilities and Rehabilitation Acts and subsequently banned camping on city streets during daytime hours.