“I didn’t think it speaks to how they have been running the shelter. “This has definitely been an outlier and obviously a very upsetting situation which we condemn wholeheartedly,” Cohen said. Both she and Urban Alchemy said last month that the incident did not reflect the operations of the organization or the shelter. Homelessness department spokesperson Emily Cohen said in March she was told Perry was on his break and did not look further into the matter. Since then, the Chronicle has multiple times requested timesheets and a response to the issue of whether Perry was working, but had not received a response as of March 28. Urban Alchemy could not provide timesheets to verify their timeline in the couple hours before the story published on Feb. “Obviously, nobody wants anything like this to happen again, it’s obviously a horrific thing,” he said. Peskin believed Urban Alchemy when the organization said it wasn’t aware at the time that its employee allegedly perpetrated the crime and said “they have done, by all accounts, a pretty good job running the shelter.” Peskin said he noticed that the timing didn’t exactly line up with the incident, but called it a “little wrinkle” and didn't pursue it any further to see whether the organization could produce records verifying the timeline. transparency, we want truth, and we want leadership from every single one of those agencies,” Walsh said. Walsh said she found it hard to believe the organization didn’t know about the crime or its employee’s alleged involvement. and clocked back by 1:15 a.m., which means he would have been working when the alleged shooting occurred. Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Susan Walsh, a member of the leadership team for the Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood Alliance, told the Chronicle Urban Alchemy CEO Lena Miller reported that Perry clocked out around 1 a.m. 1 meeting with community members said Urban Alchemy presented a timeline that suggests Perry was still clocked in for his shift at the time of the crime. to a shooting on the 600 block of Post Street that night.īut two people present at a Feb. Police confirmed they responded at 12:46 a.m. 17, some officials and residents have raised questions about the timeline of the incident. He is due back in court on Thursday, with his trial to begin soon. Perry has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and the case continues to proceed through the court, “which is in the midst of a huge trial backlog and so he has not had a chance to defend himself in front of a jury,” the Public Defender’s office said. “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our community, and while this (arrest) was in no way connected to other UA staff or 711 Post Guest, we approached it with the seriousness and sensitivity we know it deserves.” Tyler said he was “deeply saddened” to learn about the incident. He returned for the resumption of his shift, but not for work the next day, the organization said. Urban Alchemy said Perry was working a shift at the shelter and was on a 15-minute break when the incident occurred nearby. Tyler said in a statement that Perry was a resident of Lower Nob Hill, a long-standing employee of another nonprofit, Five Keys, and had been recently hired by Urban Alchemy at the time of the shooting. The organization is contracted to run services inside the shelter, which opened last summer, and provide ambassadors to monitor street conditions on the block. Last year, Urban Alchemy won a two-year $18.7 million contract from the city’s homelessness department to operate a 250-bed homeless shelter at 711 Post St. The organization has denied this allegation, saying its workers don’t force people to move. But Urban Alchemy has also been criticized by homeless people and their advocates, including in a recently settled lawsuit alleging the group violated civil rights by asking someone to leave a public space without cause. The organization has drawn praise from many residents and officials for giving employment opportunities, providing an alternative to police and keeping the streets safe and clean. As of last year, the nonprofit had more than 1,000 employees, most of whom are people of color coming out of prison. Urban Alchemy is a nonprofit organization that rapidly expanded during the pandemic, picking up millions of dollars in contracts from San Francisco, other cities and private entities to run homeless services and employ ambassadors to clean the streets, reverse overdoses and deter drug use. Urban Alchemy and the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Services said they found out about the former employee’s alleged involvement in the Nov. 14 for not showing up for work, said the organization’s chief of community affairs, Kirkpatrick Tyler.
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