Philly police threatened to shut down a longtime Kensington soup kitchen. Now, they say it was ‘a misstep.’

The St. Francis Inn soup kitchen has stood proudly in the heart of Kensington for more than 45 years, its mural of the popular saint overlooking an intersection that has for decades been home to the downtrodden and has seen its fair share of drug activity.

But recently, in the midst of a city-led crackdown on the open-air drug market in the neighborhood, some staff members and volunteers feared for the Catholic ministry’s very existence.

Last week, Capt. Brian Gress of the 26th Police District sent a letter to St. Francis staff, saying that nuisance behavior including litter and disorderly conduct had occurred on the sidewalk outside the soup kitchen. It advised the staff that if similar behavior happened three more times in the next year, the soup kitchen could be the subject of “legal action to close your establishment.”

After The Inquirer reached out to the Police Department for comment, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said in a statement Thursday that the letter was “clearly a misstep” and that the department was “working to not only rectify the situation, but to ensure that it does not happen again.”

Laws against nuisance businesses, he said, are meant to “address chronic problem properties that facilitate disorder, not organizations serving vulnerable populations.”

“The Philadelphia Police Department values the vital work that faith-based organizations like St. Francis Inn does for our communities,” he said. “The letter in question was not meant to suggest that the Inn itself is a nuisance business.”

However, the threat was enough to stoke fear among staff and volunteers that a community pillar that provides free meals to hundreds of the city’s neediest people every week could be no more.

And it was reflective, some say, of the trepidation among many of Kensington’s service providers that they could be targeted by the city amid a yearslong effort to change conditions in the neighborhood. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration and City Council have made ending the Kensington open-air drug market and improving quality of life a top priority since Parker took office in 2024, and both have taken at-times controversial steps to regulate existing services.

“This is real, live pressure at this point. This is like, ‘you’re on our radar, and you’re a problem,’” Karen Pushaw, who has worked at St. Francis and lived in the area for three decades, said of receiving the letter. “We’re like, ‘We’ve been here, and the guests are coming.’ We serve 10 meals a week plus associated services. We’ve been around for so long.”

Founded in 1979, St. Francis Inn was started by three friars who wanted to operate a soup kitchen like a restaurant, where the poor would be treated with dignity. The people they served would be called “guests,” and the food would be dropped off at tables by waiters.

Today, at the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Hagert Street, St. Francis still operates in that Catholic-Franciscan tradition. Staff — called “team members” — live on the block in solidarity with the people they serve. In addition to providing food, they operate a clothing center several days a week.

The area outside St. Francis is also seen by many as a safe zone.

Jerome Hayward, 48, has been homeless since his mother died in 2021, he said. He’s one of about a dozen people who stay outside St. Francis all day, chatting, drinking, playing cards with other men. He prefers the block because it’s safer and quieter than many other parts of Kensington, he said.

“I’d rather stay here. There’s too many problems down there,” he said, motioning north on Kensington Avenue, where drug use and sales are more heavily concentrated.

“They ask us to leave but we stubborn,” Hayward said. “They really helping us though. And this is the safest area.”

Pushaw said the recent pressure on staff at St. Francis to manage the sidewalk outside the ministry’s walls is the result of the dueling dynamics of creeping gentrification and a lack of adequate support for people with complex health needs who live on the street. As developers have built trendy apartment buildings nearby, complaints have proliferated about the 10 to 15 people who often camp out on the sidewalk outside, frequently leaving behind trash or creating noise at night.

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The Police Department’s letter to the St. Francis Inn followed a Sept. 17 incident when a staff member called police for assistance with a man selling items outside. When police responded, officers warned the staff member about the “overcrowded homeless population,” according to an incident report.

Police, in the report, wrote that the staff member “refused to comply with police in assisting with keeping the homeless population from alongside the building.”

Pushaw said this was a misunderstanding. St. Francis staff, she said, have little tolerance for the misconduct that can come from crowds or encampments growing on the sidewalk — trash, fights, open drug use, public urination, and defecation — and they regularly ask people to leave.

But there’s only so much they can do, Pushaw said, and it’s not always safe for staff to take further action. Many of the people on the street, she said, are resistant to treatment and shelters.

“We agree it’s not great for people to be out there,” Pushaw said. “But we don’t have any place to really direct them.”

Jennifer McNally and her fiancé, Spartacus Saldana, have been homeless since they were evicted from their Kensington home about a year ago. They come to St. Francis for dinner every day and said they don’t know what they would do without it.

McNally, 52, said she was frustrated that people on the sidewalk could put St. Francis at risk — but she doesn’t just blame them.

“It’s hard to fault anybody,” she said. “These people, they’re mentally ill and addicted. … they’re just trying to stay close to where they can survive.”

The Parker administration has employed a multipronged strategy to address quality of life and nuisance behavior in Kensington since early 2024. The Police Department deployed dozens more officers — many of them rookies — to patrol the neighborhood. And the city opened a massive, new recovery house while it works with existing drug treatment facilities to expand capacity for people in addiction who are ready to leave the neighborhood.

But other outreach service providers in Kensington have faced threats of elimination or new restrictions that they say make it difficult for them to reach the people they serve.

For example, City Council this year passed legislation outlining new rules for mobile service providers, which are roving vans that offer medical services, serve free food, or conduct clothing drives. Residents have long complained that the vans attract people who use drugs to residential blocks, prompting the city to curtail where the vans can operate.

» READ MORE: Restrictions on Kensington outreach services won’t be enforced yet

The Parker administration and members of Council have also targeted some brick-and-mortar service providers in Kensington that offer so-called “harm reduction” services, such as distributing sterile syringes. Parker’s administration last year cut $1 million in funding from the addiction treatment center, Prevention Point, and the zoning board voted to place stricter regulations on the organization. A separate nonprofit harm reduction group, Savage Sisters, lost its lease in Kensington after intervention from City Hall.

However, Council members have not sought to close down soup kitchens or churches that provide services to the poor and are generally seen as having a positive presence in the neighborhood.

Councilmember Jim Harrity, who represents the city at-large and lives in Kensington, has advocated for stronger regulations in the neighborhood. But he said he wasn’t aware of complaints about St. Francis.

“We still need some of these places to be open,” Harrity said, “especially when they have a building and are not on the streets.”

Still, there’s pervasive concern among service providers that they could be targeted with new restrictions or enforcement.

Bill McKinney, executive director of the New Kensington Community Development Corp., said the police letter to St. Francis last week “speaks to the fear a lot of providers live in.”

“A small thing can feel like the world is collapsing,” he said, adding that he’s grateful the Police Department resolved the matter. “We need to work collectively on this stuff, especially when we have good partners who can do that.”

Bethel, the police commissioner, said he has the same goal.

“We are confident that we can work together to address concerns in a constructive way,” he said. “Our goal is not to penalize or discourage community service, but to ensure public safety and quality of life for all who live, work, and serve in Kensington.”