City oversight of Urban Alchemy's shelter contract
Portland's oversight of Urban Alchemy's $90.4 million shelter services contract, including complaint totals, council oversight requests, and city coordination with the nonprofit's PR firm.
Portland police arrested two people after a year-long East Precinct Neighborhood Response Team investigation, begun in September 2025, into drug dealing out of the Safe Rest Village on North Portland Road. Keith Kelly, 36, was charged with cocaine possession and distribution, including distribution within 1,000 feet of a school, and Angela Burns, 65, was charged with cocaine possession and distribution offenses. Urban Alchemy, which operates the site, said no staff members were arrested or charged.
Searches under Multnomah County warrants covered the village and a home in the 400 block of Northeast 16th Avenue, where police said they found meth and suspected drug ledgers.
Public records obtained by the Mercury showed Portland Solutions staff spent months coordinating with Riff City Strategies, Urban Alchemy's public relations firm — sharing draft responses to reporters' questions, alerting the firm to publication dates, and connecting it with Mayor Keith Wilson's top staff. Complaints against the nonprofit, which holds a $90.4 million five-year city contract through 2028, have reached at least 156 since it came to Portland in 2023; a June email from the mayor's deputy chief of staff named Councilors Green, Kanal, and Avalos as the contract's "most outspoken skeptics."
Councilors Avalos and Kanal issued a memo on May 8 requesting more city oversight of Urban Alchemy's contract.
Public records obtained by the Mercury showed Portland Solutions staff coordinating public messaging with Riff City Strategies, the PR firm for Urban Alchemy, which holds the city's largest homeless services contract at $90.4 million through 2028. Complaints filed against the nonprofit's Portland shelter sites since 2023 have reached at least 156, including allegations of staff drug use and sexual harassment; the records showed city staff sharing draft press responses with the firm, recommending journalists, and connecting the firm to Mayor Keith Wilson's office. A Portland police spokesperson declined a request to collaborate on a story promoting the nonprofit, writing that PPB should not promote "a business that's mentioned in at least one criminal investigation."
Councilors Candace Avalos and Sameer Kanal issued a May 8 memo requesting more oversight of the contract after earlier KATU reporting counted more than 80 complaints against Urban Alchemy sites between 2023 and 2025.