SAN FRANCISCO — “I owe something, I do. I really feel like I do,” said Louis Hammond, an Urban Alchemy ambassador. “I was released in 2017 after serving 21 years for a crime I did commit.”
After more than two decades behind bars, Hammond says he now feels a responsibility to give back. He does that by helping San Francisco’s most vulnerable.
“Empathetic active listening,” he said. “I am not here to tell my story. I am here to listen to yours.”
According to San Francisco police data, the Tenderloin has some of the highest crime levels in the city and has long grappled with open-air drug use and homelessness.
Hammond is part of an Urban Alchemy team patrolling the Tenderloin and other San Francisco neighborhoods.
Their job: deescalate conflicts, connect people with services and respond when someone is in crisis.
“One hundred eighty-seven O.D. reversals that I had the opportunity to be a part of,” Hammond said.
They all carry Narcan and gloves, and they’re trained in CPR.
Many have experienced incarceration themselves, something they said helps them connect with people on the streets.
“We have the receipts,” Hammond said. “We have done things they may want to do, or become people that we became. We are old enough and mature enough to say, ‘No, that’s not real. That is not the reality.’”
Spectrum News was invited to join the team on one of its routine morning patrols. Much of the work starts with something simple: saying hello.
Velvet, who didn’t want to share her last name, has lived in the Tenderloin for more than 30 years. She said she has watched the ambassadors save countless lives.
“I see them tolerating a lot of disrespect,” Velvet said. “I see them saving a lot of lives, and regardless of all that, they get talked about real bad. They get threatened and all that, and they still be polite.”
Now, new research suggests their presence may also be making a measurable difference.
A study from Stanford University found overall reported crime was 20% lower at intersections where Urban Alchemy ambassadors were stationed. Behavioral health-related crime dropped nearly 27%, and drug crime fell 29%.
But even with those gains, the Tenderloin is still grappling with a deadly and evolving drug crisis.
This month, city leaders warned about a new drug, cyclorphine, a synthetic opioid officials say is more powerful than fentanyl and can be harder to detect.
“Fentanyl test strips often do not work on these new drugs,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. “When a new deadly drug appears in San Francisco, we are going to find it. We are going to track it. We are going to warn people about it, and we are going to go after the people selling it.”
That ongoing drug crisis is worrisome for Tenderloin residents and business owners such as JJ Smith.
“Businesses are going to keep closing, and people are going to keep dying if they don’t fix this,” said Smith.
Smith noted that he appreciates the ambassadors’ work but believes the city also needs to step up its drug enforcement.
“They still have people on Sixth Street selling fentanyl, and it’s that fentanyl that is still killing people. My own brother died from fentanyl because it is easily accessible,” Smith said.
Hammond said he and his team know it is not an overnight fix.
“It’s not easy, right? There’s a lot of people out here. So what do you make sure you try to do?” he said. “Consistency is everything. We all got to be consistent in our conversations.”
For Hammond, that means showing up again tomorrow because, he says, every person they reach is not only a life saved but also a step toward a safer city.
Source: spectrumnews1.com
