Parker administration to open specialized site for people with addiction in Fairmount

Philadelphia city workers and addiction service providers are working to open a triage center and shelter in Fairmount where people living on the street can seek services, a move that comes days before authorities plan to clear a homeless encampment in Kensington, according to sources briefed on the plan.

The sources, who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the plan publicly, said the city intends to use a facility at 2100 W. Girard Ave. on a state-owned campus that recently housed a nursing home and a men’s homeless shelter.

Joe Grace, a spokesperson for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, said that the program is an expansion of existing services at the homeless shelter, which is already run by the city.

“There remains much more work to be done as the Parker administration works to build out a comprehensive system of long-term care, treatment and housing for individuals suffering from addiction to substances, mental health challenges and people experiencing homelessness,” he said in a statement.

Following the initial publication of this article, Grace said the administration disputed the characterization of the site as a “triage center,” saying instead that the city “view[s] this as more of a wellness center.” He declined to detail the difference between such facilities. The mayor’s budget proposal released in March includes $100 million for “triage and wellness facilities.”

The move comes amid months of intense deliberations in City Hall about how to establish facilities to potentially absorb hundreds of people with addiction living on the streets in Kensington as Parker moves on her promise to end the neighborhood’s entrenched open-air drug market. Police intend to begin clearing a heavily populated area of Kensington Avenue next week, and Parker has said that stabilizing Kensington will require expanding long-term treatment and housing.

Top Parker administration officials have described the triage center concept generally as a short-term care facility where people who use drugs can be taken to seek referrals to treatment, medical care, and other services. It remained unclear, though, what services would be offered and how people would be taken to the facility, which is located nearly five miles from the heart of Kensington’s drug market.

The Parker administration declined to provide more details about the center, and some key stakeholders were in the dark Thursday, including some top law enforcement officials, as well as members of City Council who floated the triage center model months ago. Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., whose district includes the site, said he was unaware the city planned to use the former nursing home as a triage center.

But sources said social service providers were scrambling to staff the Girard Avenue site for a soft launch as early as Wednesday.

The former nursing home sits on a nearly two-acre campus on an arterial street between Fairmount and Francisville. Stone walls line the perimeter of the leafy estate, providing a buffer from the residential streets and nearby Girard College.

While some operational details remain hazy, sources said the facility is a low-barrier shelter that could hold dozens of patients. They said it would be staffed by employees of Project HOME and Prevention Point — two nonprofits that offer outreach and housing to unhoused people and provide a number of public health services for people in addiction, respectively. Both organizations already hold contracts with the city.

The city’s Police Assisted Diversion program, which offers rehabilitation services to people facing criminal charges for nonviolent crimes, will not operate at the site, officials said Thursday. It was not immediately clear whether the program would refer people to the planned facility.

“PAD and the new plan to get more people into treatment in a variety of facilities are distinct interventions working towards similar goals,” said Kurt August, director of the Office of Criminal Justice.

Spokespeople for Prevention Point and Project HOME either referred questions to the city or were not immediately able to provide clarity.

One source said wound care would be offered on site to treat skin damage caused by xylazine, or “tranq,” an animal tranquilizer that has been added to most of the illicit fentanyl in Philadelphia. Tranq causes serious lesions that are slow to heal and can become infected. Wound care has emerged as one of the largest barriers for people struggling in addiction, as many long-term rehab centers will not accept patients with untreated sores.

Parker has proposed borrowing $100 million to fund multiple “triage and wellness facilities” in locations around the city, but that plan has not yet been approved by City Council.

It remains unclear what role law enforcement will play in the triage center.

A cadre of City Council members have sought a treatment-or-jail ultimatum for drug users, who would in theory arrive at a triage facility and choose between rehab or a jail cell.

Some officials have questioned the legality of that tactic, and the Parker administration has not committed to it. In budget testimony to City Council in March, Managing Director Adam K. Thiel described the triage concept in less punitive terms as a short-term conduit for connecting people to long-term treatment options.

“It starts with triage and bringing people in, making sure they have the services that they need, and then moving them through to medium-term help, care, treatment, and long-term housing and economic opportunity,” Thiel said. “What exactly does that look like? That is under development.”

Thiel estimated during his testimony, now five weeks ago, that the first triage facility could open “within weeks.”

Since then, the administration has not provided specifics about where the centers would be located and which services would be provided there.

The Police Department last month released a five-phase plan to address the situation in Kensington, which includes a multiday sweep during which people would be arrested for crimes such as drug possession and prostitution.

During another Council hearing days later, Public Safety Director Adam Geer said the administration’s primary goal is to connect people to treatment services — not to make arrests.

“Folks who would be arrested, that would be because they refused treatment and because they were doing something criminal,” Geer said.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify that the city’s Police Assisted Diversion program will not physically operate out of the Fairmount site.

Staff writers Ellie Rushing and Samantha Melamed contributed to this article.