Announcement of how opioid settlement money will be spent in Kensington elicits mixed responses from community members

Kensington is in the midst of two crises.

One is the opioid addiction epidemic that resulted in a growing number of drug-related deaths in Philadelphia over the past years, including a record 1,276 fatalities in 2021, the latest statistics available.

When Mayor Jim Kenney unveiled the city’s plan Thursday to spend the first $20 million of the $200 million opioid settlement payment, much of it was directed to prevention services and reducing the harm of addiction.

The plan includes $7.5 million for Kensington Wellness Corridors Investments, a planning effort that will fund home repairs, help residents battle foreclosures, and improve parks and schools in the neighborhood. Bill McKinney, executive director of New Kensington CDC, and Casey O’Donnell, CEO of Impact Services Corporation, both advocates of participatory decision-making, are leading this effort and are committed to centering the views and needs of Kensington community.

“While it is often good for business to position ourselves as lone wolves in opposition to everything,” said McKinney, a longtime Kensington resident, “it is not good for actual solutions. Those of us who actually live here are aware that we are all interconnected and a comprehensive solution is necessary.”

“The $7.5 million helps,” said O’Donnell, “but what is as important is people coming to the table.”

» READ MORE: Mobile methadone clinics are among the initiatives Philly will fund with opioid settlement funds

The plan calls for $3.1 million for overdose prevention and $400,000 to support the Kensington Community Resilience Fund, a public-private-community partnership addressing quality-of-life impact of the opioid crisis in the Kensington, Harrowgate and Fairhill neighborhoods.

There is also money set aside for outreach and engagement, housing, treatment initiatives, juvenile justice, and alternatives to incarceration.

But for community residents there is another, more pressing, crisis: public safety.

Kensington is home to one of the nation’s largest open-air narcotic markets, turning some blocks into shooting galleries — for both needles and guns. The first child shot this year was a 7-year-old Kensington girl hit by a stray bullet while resting in her great-grandmother’s house.

Guillermo García , 53, who has lived in Kensington since he was 4 years old and serves as the de facto block captain for his Swanson Street and Indiana Avenue community, believes the only way to improve the quality of life in Kensington is to eliminate drug sales, which he says are the source of all other issues: chronic homelessness, overdose fatalities, gun violence, and the lack of economic alternatives for juvenile drug dealers.

“The main thing is the drug sales, and that’s where all the homelessness comes in with addicts sleeping on your steps. It’s from the drugs,” said Garcia.

And the only way to eliminate drug sales, he said, is to have a robust police presence in the neighborhoods.

But there is nothing allocated for enhanced policing in these early spending plans.

During Thursday’s news conference, newly elected City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada said Kensington residents, while empathetic to the needs and hardships of people with addictions, are weary of living within an open-air narcotics market.

“I’m aware that advocating for law enforcement activity is not something many want to entertain, but it is what the Kensington community residents have been begging for, for a really long time,” Lozada said.

“We know that the opioid settlement funding is in its early stages,” she added. “We don’t know the nooks and crannies of the plan. We haven’t heard the operationalized plans yet. I’m hopeful there will be an operation put in place that will address and include law enforcement.”

Patrice Rogers, executive director of the outreach program Stop the Risk, has the goal of helping people with addictions return to their families. Rogers’ activism was initiated after her husband became addicted to heroin and died in a motorcycle accident.

“We need balance that treats addiction without out enabling it and making it acceptable.”

She believes that concentrating harm-reduction and prevention services, such as mobile street clinics, in Kensington only encourages people with addictions to remain.

“We’re known as the Disney World for users. If you give free food and a free shower and free needles, why should you ever leave and return home?” Rogers added. “I used to feed 200 people, but I wasn’t helping them. I was enabling them.”

For Rogers, the priority is taking back the streets for residents. “We need more of a police presence to protect us when we are out here. We need to bring police back.”

There is a deep weariness with the status quo in the community, but also a kind of wariness about who is served by the plan.

“We’ve suffered enough in Kensington,” said Gilberto Gonzalez, a community activist and student recruiter at Community College of Philadelphia. “There are so many levels of injustice. There is no other part of the city that allows people to put up tents and pile up trash.”

When told the opioid settlement funding would be made available for such things as site improvements to playgrounds and park cleanups, Garcia said: “You can clean up parks [but you’re] just cleaning up for them [drug dealers]. What’s the point of fixing up a park?”

“It is complicated,” said the Rev. Adan Mairena of West Kensington Ministry. “The residents are just frustrated and confused and feel they are not being listened to.

“On one hand those with addiction will need a variety of social services to kick the drug habit. It’s a really tall mountain to climb. On the other hand, community members are left to deal with the problems. The residents are a direct victim of stuff,” he added.

“We need balance that treats addiction without enabling it and making it acceptable. But we can’t arrest ourselves out of the problem.”

“I’m hopeful there will be an operation put in place that will address and include law enforcement.”

After the news conference, Rogers expressed mixed feelings of optimism and frustration.

“I’ve heard this before,” she said. But she also expressed confidence that O’Donnell would ensure small frontline community groups such as Stop the Risk would be at the table.

At the news conference, McKinney, too, insisted there would be a variety of voices making decisions.

“I do want to take this moment to commend the city for recognizing that the path forward needs to be community-driven, trauma-informed, and comprehensive in its approach. I appreciate everyone that recognizes that those most impacted need to be at the center of the table with developing solutions.”

“The common thread is everyone wants safety and prosperity for Philadelphia neighborhoods,” O’Donnell said.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.