A beacon of stability in Kensington | Morning Newsletter
🚲 And trails for exploring.
The Morning Newsletter
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter
It’s Friday! It’s also set to be another scorcher, as the classic ‘90s commercial goes, with sun and high temps around 90. Even with possible PM showers, don’t forget your sunscreen.
Today, we have the story on Beacon House in Kensington, one of the nation’s lowest-barrier shelters for drug users. Some say it offers tough lessons for the city in crisis.
And our service desk has a roundup of the best Philly bike trails to explore small towns, food destinations, and breathtaking vistas. Read on for these stories and many more.
— Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)
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Kensington’s Beacon House is a rarity in the United States, and in Philadelphia: It’s a shelter geared toward people in active addiction that doesn’t require its residents to stop using drugs, and doesn’t enforce restrictions like curfews or security screenings that are in place at some other shelters.
Called a low-barrier shelter, the goal isn’t explicitly to get residents sober — it’s to give them support as they navigate their next steps. But because they finally have a form of stability amid the chaos of addiction, many do, with the help of on-site case management.
“If we were actually crafting policy around what research and evidence shows is successful, it would be this type of model,” a national drug policy reform advocate told The Inquirer.
Yet Beacon faces the same challenges as many addiction services orgs in the beleaguered neighborhood, including clashes with neighbors who complain of residents’ drug use on their blocks. The conversation also comes at a time when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is seeking to both crack down on opioids in Kensington and expand treatment options throughout the city.
The Inquirer’s Max Marin and Aubrey Whelan have the story.
What you should know today
Philadelphia City Council has officially passed Parker’s first budget, which takes effect July 1. Council also banned the city from extending its lease at a controversial Fairmount shelter site.
Pennsylvania’s lack of funding for public defenders is so pronounced that the state is depriving citizens of their constitutional rights to due process, according a new lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
Federal authorities on Thursday announced charges against 12 alleged members of a drug trafficking organization they blamed for injecting “a staggering amount” of fentanyl and firearms into Philly over the last year.
The truck fire that caused the collapse of the I-95 bridge last summer was most likely started by a gas hatch that was left open, a new report said.
An activist group backed by GOP donors is sending mobile billboards to the schools and homes of two teachers in the Central Bucks and Philadelphia school districts this week, saying it aimed to expose their “antisemitic statements.”
Laid-off University of the Arts faculty are pressuring the Pennsylvania attorney general to launch a formal investigation into what went wrong in the school’s catastrophic final days.
The turnpike’s Northeast Extension will see construction of cashless toll structures with sensors begin in 2025. Then the booths come down.
Philly’s “unaesthethic moms” are part of an online trend of unpolished, realistic content about parenting and domestic life — an antidote to the influx of highly curated social media content.
The Philadelphia region is an urban cyclist’s dream, with its sprawling network of bike trails — hundreds of miles in all — connected by the Schuylkill River Trail, the Circuit Trails network, and the East Coast Greenway.
🚲 Our new beginner’s guide to biking Philly’s most idyllic trails has all the essentials on where to start, what to pack, and how to map your route.
🚲 Looking for a ride within city limits? Start with the Schuylkill Boardwalk. (Pro tip: Bring a picnic.) Or if you love farmland and orchards, take the Pennypack Trail from the Delaware River up to Fox Chase Farm.
🚲 Feeling a trek into Jersey? Cross the Ben Franklin Bridge to the Cooper River Trail through Camden, Collingswood, and Haddonfield.
P.S. If you’re seeking more adventure guides like this, sign up for The Inquirer’s free and fun Outdoorsy newsletter. It will hit your inbox every Friday.
Welcome back to Curious Philly Friday. We’ll feature both new and timeless stories from our forum for readers to ask about the city’s quirks.
This week, we have a new explainer from reporter Michelle Myers thanks to a reader question. Despite what you might reasonably assume about the country’s origins based on more celebratory depictions of history, not every early American was a fan of the revolution.
Indeed, non-patriots — including some Quakers, whose pacifism precluded them from picking a side — were exiled to Virginia (the horror!). No one was tarred and feathered, but some lost their property. And two lost their lives for allegedly collaborating with the British. Here’s the full explanation.
Have your own burning question about Philadelphia, its local oddities, or how the region works? Submit it here and you might find the answer featured in this space.
🧠 Trivia time
Which group is on track to become Philadelphia’s largest immigrant group, according to the latest Pew report?
A) Armenians
B) Bahamians
C) Chileans
D) Dominicans
Think you know? Check your answer.
What we’re...
🏳️🌈 Loving: This op-ed on trans love in Philadelphia.
👟 Running to: This weekend’s Got Sole sneaker convention in Oaks.
🎤 Visiting: The Taylor Swift exhibit at the Stone Harbor Museum.
🧩 Unscramble the anagram
The longtime radio voice of the Eagles who will be recognized by the NFL Hall of Fame.
REELER SMILER
Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Alaina Ewins, who solved Thursday’s anagram: Manayunk. The Northwest Philly neighborhood is known for its river access, small-town feel, one tall wall — and plenty of breweries, now including Source Brewing opening inside a 19th-century bank.
Photo of the day
👃 One last stinky thing: Remember the meat and cheese that was forgotten on the grease pole for weeks after the Italian Market Festival? Some South Philly heroes finally took it down yesterday.
Enjoy your weekend! See you same time, same place Monday.
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