More help has been delivered to Ingleside’s stretch of Ocean Avenue.
A three-member team from Urban Alchemy, an organization that hires formerly incarcerated people to manage public safety and cleanliness, started working on the avenue last week.
“We don’t carry mace, billy clubs or any weapons, so everything we do, we do from our heart,” said Rodger Hill, Urban Alchemy’s Ocean Avenue site supervisor. “We meet. We greet. We have an exchange, and whoever we are dealing with, we try to meet them where they are at.”
Hill, who is joined by Charles Green and Joshua Spencer, said his team will focus on cleaning from Wednesday to Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. until at least July. They will also handle safety concerns, which Hill said was a big part of their day-to-day tasks. Hill shared that they’ve already assisted in a safety situation where an unhoused individual entered a daycare.
Safety and cleanliness ambassadors are more commonplace in San Francisco than ever before. District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who represents much of the greater Ingleside, recently introduced legislation that would require them to be paid better.
There are multiple cleaning and safety service providers along Ingleside’s Ocean Avenue. Aside from Ocean Avenue Association’s Roland Lee, and now Urban Alchemy’s three workers, the Department of Public Works has a Block Sweeper on the avenue. And, after a grisly home-invasion homicide on Granada Avenue, one of three in the neighborhood last year, the San Francisco Police Department assigned its public safety ambassadors to the neighborhood for a few weeks to join the lone footbeat officer.
The addition of Urban Alchemy cleaning and safety ambassadors was sought after through an initiative of Mayor Daniel Lurie by the Ocean Avenue Association, the nonprofit charged with managing the Ocean Avenue Community Benefit District.
“OAA has been helping coordinate locally and serve as a point of contact to make sure the deployment aligns with what we're seeing on the corridor,” said Megan Catumull, the association’s executive director. “It's still early, but the goal is to support a more consistent, visible presence and proactively address safety concerns in the area.”
The Ocean Avenue Association’s sole ambassador, Roland Lee, said he appreciates the extra hands. Lee has worked to keep Ocean Avenue tidy since 2023, with the addition of Lakeside Village last year. The association’s leaders said it would hire more ambassadors in the future.
“I’m happy,” Lee said. “I need help. I received it. Now I can do other things to help beautify Ocean Avenue.”
With the added support, Lee said he will be focused on his biggest task: graffiti removal. Catmull said Lee will also direct time toward weeding, cleaning Lakeside Village and other priority work.
Urban Alchemy’s Ocean Avenue team can be reached through their director at 415-407-6873.
