San Francisco-based nonprofit Urban Alchemy took over management of Santa Fe's homeless shelter in August when it signed an emergency contract with the city, agreeing to manage the shelter, now known as Agape House, for a year. But by January, only 20 percent of the shelter's funding remained. Carina Julig broke this story for the Santa Fe New Mexican, and she stopped by the KSFR studios to tell us more about her reporting.
this transcript has been edited lightly for clarity
KSFR: So this sounds a bit alarming– about halfway through the contract and 80 percent of the funding is already gone. But you reported that Urban Alchemy saw this coming.
Carina Julig: That seems to be the case. The New Mexican requested invoices that the city had paid Urban Alchemy, and those showed that by the end of January, they had already spent over 1.2 million out of a 1.5 million contract that's supposed to be for a full year of services ending this July. When we reached out to Urban Alchemy officials, their chief administrative officer, Mike Anderers said that when negotiations were happening over the summer about this contract there was an awareness that this funding may not be enough to cover the entire year. In part, due to the 24/7 nature of the staffing operations and the requirement to provide meals. But he said that potentially was going to be addressed at a later time. He said the city really wanted to get it done and be as smooth as possible. This was a very controversial contract at the time, although they did end up being awarded two contracts by a significant majority of the council.
What is the city saying about Anderers account of things that– some of the funding would be taken care of later?
Something to note is there has been a change in the administration while all this is going on– former mayor Alan Weber's term ended at the end of 2025 and now, of course, Mayor Michael Garcia is in the early months of his term. Garcia, when he was a counselor, was actually the only counselor to vote against these contracts. And he said at the time that he did have financial concerns about the city spending so much on contracts. We reached out to the city's former main homelessness official, Henri Hammond Hall. He adamantly disputed Mike Anderers characterization. He said that there was no sense at all that the city was promising Urban Alchemy, any type of future funding or resources. He added that that would not have passed the city's legal review at the time, and that would not have been appropriate. And of course, the current administration is coming into this after the fact. But Garcia said that he had no knowledge as a counselor of any of these conversations.
Despite whatever anyone's expectations were when the contract was signed, what is the plan now? Is there a proposed plan either from city council or Urban Alchemy to keep the shelter from running out of money?
Several Urban Alchemy officials gave city council a presentation at their February 25 meeting. Their CFO presented what they described as a revised service plan to the council. Essentially they have about $3.4 million for their first funding year, and they are proposing moving some of the money from their street outreach contract to shelter funding. My understanding is that they're having meetings with the administration right now about that. I've been told by the city that any change to the contract, even if it doesn't include additional money, would need to go before the council for a vote. So I think it’s very possible that we will see that in the next couple of months. And the council will have a chance to make the final decision about.
I'm also curious if city leaders think they're getting a return on the city's investment into Urban Alchemy so far.
At that same February 25 meeting, some of the councilors did speak very positively about Urban Alchemy. They said that they were very happy and pleased with the change in appearance of Harrison Road, which is, of course, the road that the Agape house shelter is on. And the conditions in that area of town are really what led to the breaking point with the past operator, Interfaith Community Shelter. There were long standing frustrations from the people in the Siler-Rufina area about a lot of the problematic activity around the shelter. The city had information that I think pointed to almost 5 percent of total police call volume was for the immediate area around the shelter. My sense, from what they said, is they're very happy about the change.
Something the counselors really asked about at that meeting was the level of services Urban Alchemy is providing directly to homeless people, and how many people they've managed to get into permanent housing. When you look at the numbers, it does seem like that has decreased quite a bit from what Interfaith Community Shelter was doing. I was told by their interim executive director that in their last year of operation, they helped 53 people get into housing or to receive a housing voucher. And Urban Alchemy says, to date, it has housed 11 people who have been shelter guests in Agape House since August.
Wow, that's quite a stark difference. So you mentioned Interfaith Community Shelter a couple of times. What is the latest with that organization?
They're still around. They did lay off most of their employees after they lost their contract to operate the homeless shelter known by many people in the community as Pete's Place. But they still have several employees. Their main focus since the summer has been on their vision for what they're calling the Resource and Opportunity Center, which would be a purpose built homeless shelter that would provide both overnight and day services for the homeless. And they are taking strides to try and make that a reality. They purchased a plot of land near the Santa Fe Place Mall in January. They are hoping to build a facility which they've said would cost about $16 million. They did ask for capital outlay in the legislative session from lawmakers, and were unsuccessful this year in getting any money. But I did speak to their board president, and he said that he was encouraged by the conversations they were able to have during the session and their ability to share with politicians about their vision. And it sounds like they are going full speed ahead with plans to apply for building permits.
