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How Philly’s Office of Homeless Services overspent $15 million: ‘Things got away from everybody’

The office’s former director said they were operating under extraordinary circumstances: “Sometimes you have to choose: Am I going to be a good bureaucrat? Or am I going to save people’s lives?”

An unhoused person sleeps on the steps of the Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on 18th Street as Amy Herlich (left) and Tom Marvit conduct the city's winter count of people living on the streets in January.
An unhoused person sleeps on the steps of the Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on 18th Street as Amy Herlich (left) and Tom Marvit conduct the city's winter count of people living on the streets in January.Read moreSteven M. Falk / Staff Photographer