Mayoral hopefuls have started talking about how to ‘fix’ Kensington. Community leaders have heard it all before.

The Kensington area once accounted for 75% of the drugs seized in the city, 40% of drug arrests, and 30% of the homicides. The city responded by creating Operation Sunrise, which promised to attack every issue — abandoned cars, vacant houses, sex work, graffiti, trash.

“We are determined to take this area back, block by block, for as long as it takes,” an Operation Sunrise coordinator told the press.

That was 1998.

“It was like stop and frisk on steroids,” recalled Israel Colón, a retired community activist and nonprofit leader. “It was like the invasion of Normandy.”

Colón said that enhanced policing is a temporary solution. “We knew it wasn’t going to work. It didn’t work in the ‘60s, the ‘70s, the ‘80s, and it wasn’t going to work in the ‘90s,” he said.

A generation and many plans later, Kensington residents are complaining about the same issues they did 25 years ago — a plethora of drug activity driving crime and destroying their quality of life.

“If anything it’s worse,” said Marnie Aument-Loughrey, chair of the Kensington Independent Civic Association (KICA) and a 50-year Kensington resident.

“Even when I was a kid there were drugs but it wasn’t out in the open,” Aument-Loughrey said. “We went outside and played. We went to McVeigh playground and swam in the summer. We went to Scanlon playground to the ice rink in the winter. And kids could walk back and forth. Their parents didn’t have to pick them up. It changed somewhere in the late ‘90s, early 2000s with the open-air drug market.”

Ten Democratic mayoral candidates have started working to convince skeptical Kensington residents that their plans can provide both short-term relief and long-term results. But they have a lot of convincing to do.

“I’ve lost faith in plans unless there are actionable steps and leadership,” Colón said.

Former District 9 Councilmember Cherelle L. Parker has recalled Operation Sunrise and said that the plan “showed that a strong, proactive police presence can help to make these communities more livable.”

She added that the plan could be the basis for a blueprint of what could be accomplished. Adding more patrol officers is part of her Philadelphia Neighborhood Safety and Community Policy Plan.

Former Councilmember Allan Domb has released a 10-point community safety plan that would triple funding for recruiting police officers, declare a crime emergency citywide and a public health emergency in Kensington all within his first 100 days in office.

Ex-city Controller Rebecca Rhynhart would also enact a state of emergency upon taking office and appoint a citywide drug czar to coordinate services.

Maria Quiñones Sánchez, whose former councilmanic district included Kensington, said it’s disinvestment that drives crime, so her plan de-emphasizes policing and foregrounds rebuilding the community’s social infrastructure.

“When our only answer is for police to show up after a crime, that means government has failed,” she tells Kensington residents.

The other candidates have less specific plans.

Helen Gym, former city Councilmember at-large, said the root cause of gun violence is racism and disinvestment, and as a councilmember spearheaded the creation of the Youth Powered Anti-Violence Agenda, which called for concentrating youth-related services in the neighborhoods most heavily impacted by gun violence.

Jeff Brown, CEO of Brown’s Super Stores Inc., said that “you alleviate long-term poverty with a job,” adding that problems in Kensington won’t be solved by policing but by using social workers to build rapport and trust with the unhoused and those living with an addiction.

Ex-city Councilmember Derek Green, a former prosecutor, wants to increase the police ranks by eliminating the city’s residency requirement for officers.

“Saying I have a plan and not connecting with the community is not enough.”

Former Municipal Judge James M. DeLeon’s Gun Violence Emergency Safety Plan calls for more coordination among gun violence advocates and first responders.

State Rep. Amen Brown has taken a tough-on-crime stance and said he would focus on investing in forensic services, technology and tactics, and training.

Warren Bloom said he has a “6-Point Plan for Philadelphia” that prioritizes public safety, reducing crime, and the opioid crisis.

“There’s been a number of interventions in Kensington and the surrounding areas. I think the main criticism that is levied is that it’s been a top-down process and has not centered community as a key partner and really give them a real seat at table to be co-creators,” said Rick Sauer, executive director of the Philadelphia Association of Community Development Corporations (PACDC).

Impact Services Executive Director Casey O’Donnell described past planning processes as fragmented, as leaders struggled to deal with the problems of a decimated manufacturing economy, hulking abandoned warehouses, and trash-strewn vacant lots.

“There is a difference between being a candidate and being mayor. Many [candidates] don’t know the reality,” O’Donnell said.

“Saying I have a plan and not connecting with the community is not enough,” said Bill McKinney, executive director of New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) and 20-year Kensington resident.

McKinney said the lack of grassroots buy-in is one reason for the lack of sustainable results. “It’s so complex an issue. It will not be solved with a silver bullet.”

O’Donnell and McKinney have spearheaded a collaborative, holistic, and trauma-informed planning process called Kensington Health & Wellness Corridors, which will ultimately include local civic associations, school-based parents’ groups, philanthropic partners, friends groups, and political leaders.

“The city is an essential partner,” O’Donnell said.

Last month, Mayor Jim Kenney announced that the city is investing $7.5 million from the opioid settlement into the Kensington Health & Wellness Corridors plan to fund home repairs, help residents battle foreclosures, and improve neighborhood parks and schools. O’Donnell estimated $500 million is required to transform Kensington.

» READ MORE: Announcement of how opioid settlement money will be spent in Kensington elicits mixed responses from community members

Nilda Ruiz, CEO and President of the Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha (APM) remembered when Fairhill suffered from the same ills as Kensington — abandoned warehouses, empty trash-strewn lots, illegal dumping, drugs, dirty needles.

APM has invested $300 million dollars in housing over the past 30 years to turn Fairhill into a desirable neighborhood with affordable housing. On Feb. 7, APM hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Camino de Oro, a senior housing complex at Eighth and Berks Streets, which has 44 apartments on the neighborhood’s last vacant parcel of land.

“[Fairhill] use to be really bad, but we always worked through a community plan,” Ruiz said.

Aument-Loughrey, who is also the Democratic leader of the 33rd Ward, wants open-air drug dealers arrested and treatment available for those with addictions.

“Community and politics have to work together,” she said. “First thing, let the police do their job.

“And second, if we are serious about helping, where are we going to put people so that they can get help?”