Who Are the Key Stakeholders?

Six stakeholder groups appear repeatedly across documented clean team programs: business improvement districts, municipal officials, labor unions, clean team workers, law enforcement, and community advocates. Their positions and documented actions are mapped below.

Business Improvement Districts and Downtown Partnerships

BIDs fund and operate the majority of documented professional clean team programs through self-assessed property taxes. The International Downtown Association, led by President and CEO David Downey, frames clean teams as “layered approaches to public safety” that fill “the gap between no response and emergency response” (IDA). The Downtown Denver Partnership, the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), the Portland Business Alliance, and the Metropolitan Improvement District in Seattle all use variations of this language in their public materials.

Seattle’s MID renewed for 10 years at $18 million annually in May 2023 (DSA). Portland’s Clean and Safe renewed at $58 million over five years in November 2024, expanding from 213 to roughly 270 blocks (Portland.gov Ordinance 191960). Gainesville’s commission approved $3.1 million unanimously (GnvInfo). New York City has 78 BIDs (IDA).

Portland’s 2023-2024 downtown business survey found 72 percent of respondents somewhat or very satisfied with Clean and Safe services (Portland Business Alliance survey). The opposition that surfaced during Portland’s renewal came primarily from residential property owners, nonprofits within BID boundaries, and the End Clean and Safe campaign, which gathered over 600 signatories. A 2020 city auditor report found “very little city oversight” of BID operations (End Clean and Safe; Portland city auditor, 2020; Street Roots, February 2024). The Portland Business Alliance CEO’s $333,030 salary and the fact that 45 percent of Clean and Safe revenue funds the CEO’s organization were focal points of criticism during the renewal debate (Portland Mercury; Street Roots).

Municipal Government Officials

Five organizational models are documented: BID operation (Seattle), community safety department integration (Albuquerque tasked its community responders division with handling citizen requests for needle pick-ups, according to the city), city government with nonprofit partnership (Cincinnati, Baltimore), mayor’s office initiative (Denver), and national contractor (Block by Block in Arlington, Iowa City, Charlottesville) (Knowledge Graph; Q&A).

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston launched the Clean and Safe Downtown Initiative in January 2024 and expanded it in April 2025 with $3.7 million from the Downtown Denver Authority. The yellow-vest unification strategy distributed matching vests to roughly 650 existing workers to create a unified visible presence, according to the Denver Post and Denverite (Denver Post, January 8, 2024; Denverite, January 8, 2024).

San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar introduced the Clean Streets and Fair Pay Act on January 27, 2026. Melgar told reporters that ambassadors are “actually doing work that police officer should do, or homeless services worker, or public health worker” (SF Standard, January 27, 2026).

Council members in smaller cities face documented versions of the same dynamics. Charlottesville’s Michael Payne cast the sole dissenting vote on a Block by Block contract: “Any time we outsource work, I’m very concerned we’re undermining unionized workers” (29News; Information Charlottesville). Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s Jessica Schoen asked during council deliberation: “What happens after year two?” — a question facing every ARPA-funded program (Eau Claire council proceedings). Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald championed the syringe program after a 4-year-old child stepped on a needle at a park cookout: “What we’re asking for is a baseline quality of life, where someone shouldn’t have to worry about going to the park and stepping on a needle” (CBS News, via Clean Teams Newsletter).

Labor Unions

AFSCME has made clean team outsourcing a national priority (AFSCME blog). In Ann Arbor, Michigan, AFSCME Local 369 blocked a Block by Block contract by a 7-to-4 city council vote. Melgar’s Fair Pay Act in San Francisco has drawn endorsements from Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, who said: “A city that tolerates exploitation is a city that abandons its values” (SF Standard, January 27, 2026).

IFPTE Local 21 in San Francisco cited Urban Alchemy in a report on the city’s growing contractor use replacing unionized work. Laborers International Union Local 261 negotiated limits on Ahsing Solutions’ scope to protect Department of Public Works functions (IFPTE; LIUNA).

The wage data that Melgar cited frames the labor concern concretely: ambassador workers at $52,000 to $62,400 annually versus city street inspectors at up to $134,000 plus benefits. The Beyond Chron analysis found contractor supervisor rates ranging from $84 to $183 per hour billed to the city (Beyond Chron, via SF Standard).

The MDRC trial showing 22 percent recidivism reductions for recently released participants in transitional maintenance employment introduces a complication: programs like Portland’s Clean Start (130-plus employees tied to treatment services) employ populations that standard municipal hiring processes do not reach (MDRC, 2012; CCC program page).

Clean Team Workers

Worker experience varies by model. Seattle MID workers earn $22 per hour with health benefits, retirement, and employer-paid medical coverage. The MID describes itself as a “proud justice-involved employer” (DSA). Cincinnati’s Jobs Van pays $9 per hour. Kansas City’s Clean Up KC pays $18. Portland’s GLITTER pays $20 per hour (Ground Score, 2025).

Gerald Cooper, who coordinates Cincinnati’s GeneroCity 513 program, was once homeless himself. Cooper told Spectrum News 1 that at “the end of a cleaning day, he [also] takes the workers to City Gospel Mission, a homeless shelter where they’ll get food” (Spectrum News 1, via Clean Teams Newsletter). Andres Gonzalez, who coordinates Lowell’s Syringe Collection Program, described his approach in the Lowell Sun: “My main driving goal is to make sure people are safe… It’s something that I take personally. I wake up every day to try and find those needles” (Lowell Sun, via Clean Teams Q&A).

Lori Gilbert, who had been experiencing homelessness for about a year when she joined Cincinnati’s Clean Team, told WCPO: “It kind of gave me a purpose in life again, and it kind of helped motivate me to get off the streets… I’m just ready to get my life back on track.” Gilbert had saved enough from the job to buy a car (WCPO, via Clean Teams Newsletter).

Amari Evans, who started at Baltimore’s My Father’s Plan at age eight, told WMAR: “You can get paid for things you want [and]… it also helps with future job applications” (WMAR, July 2023).

Urban Alchemy, which received approximately $24 million in the December 2025 contract round, has faced at least three shooting incidents involving its workers, including the September 2025 killing of Joey Alexander outside the San Francisco Main Library after he asked a person using drugs to move from a doorway. DA Brooke Jenkins acknowledged that “this was not the first time an Urban Alchemy street ambassador had been assaulted” (KQED, September 2025). A 450-plus employee class-action settlement in July 2023 addressed wage theft and denied breaks. A second lawsuit was filed in October 2023. A UCLA report in March 2023 found the organization had not honored its wage commitments. Ahsing Solutions was under state investigation as of January 2026 (KQED; KRON4; SF Standard; Courthouse News; UCLA).

Law Enforcement

San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association President Ken Lomba argued that ambassador contract funds should go to the Sheriff’s Office rather than to organizations that “cannot deliver results” (KQED, October 2025). DA Brooke Jenkins noted the police department is approximately 500 officers short of its authorized strength, and acknowledged after the Alexander killing that “this was not the first time an Urban Alchemy street ambassador had been assaulted” (KQED, September 2025).

In Denver, the April 2025 Safe Downtown Action Plan explicitly paired a 10-officer police unit with the ambassador expansion. The police chief and DA appeared alongside the mayor at the announcement (Denverite, April 2, 2025). Kevin Johnson, Arlington’s operational manager, told The Shorthorn that the program’s relationship with local police is complementary: the goal is reaching “the point where [the first instinct is] to ‘call the ambassador'” for non-emergency situations (The Shorthorn, via Clean Teams Q&A).

Gainesville’s Block by Block contract requires weekly coordination meetings between the operations manager, the Gainesville Police Department, and Gainesville Fire Rescue (GnvInfo; Block by Block/DAMC). The contract launched weeks before Florida’s public camping ban took effect in January 2025, and city leadership publicly stated that ambassadors, not police, should be the first touchpoint with homeless individuals (GnvInfo, December 2024). The Gainesville program’s Eric Davis reports the program had housed 25 individuals by March 2025 (GnvInfo).

Community Advocates and Homeless Services Organizations

Portland’s “End Clean and Safe” campaign, with over 600 signatories, represents documented organized community opposition. The campaign targeted the Portland Business Alliance-managed BID on accountability and equity grounds: the 2020 city auditor report found “very little city oversight” of BID operations. Despite sustained criticism, the BID expanded from 213 to roughly 270 blocks in November 2024 (End Clean and Safe; Portland city auditor, 2020; Street Roots, February 2024; Portland.gov Ordinance 191960).

Programs structured as workforce development pathways generate different advocacy responses. Portland’s GLITTER program, which employs tent-dwellers and has moved more than 70 percent into permanent housing, aligns with advocacy goals for employment-based approaches to homelessness (Ground Score, 2025). Baltimore’s My Father’s Plan, which employs neighborhood youth, serves the Pen Lucy community directly. The program specifically targets youth from underinvested communities who are enrolled in school with passing grades. The program’s founder, behavioral specialist Dawod Thomas, expanded it to include mental health awareness programming and youth sports (WMAR, July 2023; WMAR, October 2023).

San Antonio’s Centro Ambassadors have embedded a licensed clinician from Corazon Ministries, a local behavioral health nonprofit, into their operations, giving the cleaning crew direct access to behavioral health assessment for people they encounter on the street (Centro/Corazon program description).

Jamie Oakland, who oversees parks in Lacey, Washington, described the community perception shift from the operational side: “This community would look so different if this team did not exist, just the amount of graffiti that they mitigate on a monthly basis makes a tremendous difference in how our citizens perceive this community” (The Olympian, via Clean Teams Newsletter).

What the Record Does Not Show

No documented program has surveyed the people who live in the public spaces being cleaned about whether the cleaning feels helpful, threatening, or neutral. Workforce development programs capture their perspective as workers. Advocacy organizations speak on their behalf. The experience of people sleeping in spaces that clean teams maintain daily is absent from the published data.

Nearly all documented stakeholder dynamics come from urban downtowns. Whether the same constellation of BID support, labor opposition, community concern, and law enforcement positions applies in suburban commercial corridors, small-town main streets, or transit-adjacent areas is untested. Block by Block’s expansion into Charlottesville and Gainesville will generate early evidence, but neither city has published stakeholder analysis.

The worker safety question is documented through incidents (Urban Alchemy’s three shootings, the Alexander fatality, the class-action settlement) but not through systematic data. No published data on worker injury rates, turnover rates by model, or worker satisfaction exists for any documented clean team program. No OSHA-specific guidance for clean team operations has been published. The absence of this data is itself a finding: cities are contracting for work that puts civilians in contact with volatile situations without tracking how often those situations produce harm to the workers.

The Bottom Line

Six stakeholder groups are documented across clean team programs. BIDs provide funding and renewal votes (Seattle $18 million for 10 years, Portland $58 million for 5 years). Municipal officials authorize programs and bear political consequences (Denver’s mayor, Melgar’s regulatory legislation, Payne’s dissenting vote). Labor unions have produced concrete outcomes (Ann Arbor blocking vote, Melgar’s Fair Pay Act, LIUNA scope limits). Workers experience conditions ranging from $22 per hour with benefits (Seattle) to $9 per hour (Cincinnati), with documented safety risks including one fatality (Urban Alchemy, September 2025). Law enforcement ranges from complementary partnership (Denver, Arlington, Gainesville) to budget competition (San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs’ Association). Community advocates range from organized opposition (Portland’s End Clean and Safe, 600-plus signatories) to support for workforce models that employ from the affected population