![]() Our progress has reduced street homelessness to a four-year low by investing in evidence-based supportive housing, adding daytime services, conducting extensive outreach, and lowering barriers to entry. 'There are about 900 people living on the streets at any given time in Philadelphia, which has a population of approximately 1.5 million. The city says that homelessness in City Center and Kensington are more visible due to construction and fewer public spaces for people to live unnoticed.ĭespite the horrific scenes from the area, the city says that Philadelphia has the lowest number of street homeless per capita of any of the largest cities in the US.Ī spokesperson for the City of Philadelphia told : 'In terms of the issue itself, chronic street homelessness is an unfortunate reality nationwide today. To put this city in that context, Philadelphia has the lowest number of people who are unsheltered among the 10 largest American cities. While the video shown on YouTube appears grim, there were actually more people on the streets at the height of the opioid epidemic.īefore the city removed four large encampments in 2019, it was not uncommon to see as many as 500 people on the streets in the two-square-mile area that encompasses City Center and Kensington.Īccording to the latest city data, there are 5,700 Philadelphians who are considered to meet the definition of ‘homeless.’ Of those, 950 are reported to be ‘unsheltered.’ ![]() Of America’s 10 largest cities, Philadelphia had the highest overdose rate in 2018. The main driver of those deaths is fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. Stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine were found in half of the cases of overdose deaths while both stimulants and opioids were present in 48 per cent of overdose fatalities. More than 80 per cent of those overdoses were blamed on opioids, a class of drugs that includes heroin and pharmaceutical painkillers like oxycodone. That’s more than three times the number of people killed by homicide in Philadelphia that year. In 2019, that number jumped to 1,150 fatal overdoses, according to data from the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office. In 2018 alone, there were 1,116 fatal drug overdoses in Philadelphia - the sixth largest city in the United States. Syringes and needles are also frequently seen out and used in plain sight. It is not uncommon for locals who pass by the area to notice men lying motionless on the sidewalk The Kensington section of Philadelphia, where anyone can buy a lethal dose of fentanyl-laced heroin for $5 a bag, has been known locally as the ‘ground zero’ of America’s opioid epidemic, Philadelphia Magazine reported. It’s a shame that people are living like this.’ ‘The city has cleared several of those, but people still gather along the main corridor. The footage also shows several homeless picking through the trash in search of food while others lie on the pavement and prop up their backs against shuttered storefrontsĬulhane, who is a professor and researcher of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania, co-authored a 2019 report on the city’s policies as they relate to the encampments that sprung up on Kensington Avenue. ![]() As such, we are not able to comment on it.'Īs the temperature plunged to a near-freezing 33 degrees, the group of unsheltered people filmed in the video are seen huddling around a fire that was started in a trash bin. The new video, which was posted to YouTube by a user with the handle name ‘HoodTime,’ was filmed last Wednesday at two spots underneath the ‘El’ - which is how locals refer to the Market-Frankford train line.Ī spokesperson for the City of Philadelphia told : 'We did not produce that video and we cannot speak to its origin or veracity. The neighborhood has previously been dubbed the 'East Coast's largest open-air drug market' by DEA officials, according to the New York Times. ![]() The video looks like a scene from an apocalyptic movie - dozens of disheveled people shivering in the middle of a winter night as they camp out around a trash bin on fire among a street strewn with litter.īut the footage isn’t a Hollywood production but a candid snapshot of Kensington Avenue in northeast Philadelphia - an area that has been likened to the infamous Skid Row section of Los Angeles.
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