Mayor Cherelle Parker says ‘not one city dollar’ will fund syringe exchange

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker vowed “not one city dollar” will be used to fund the distribution of sterile syringes to people who use drugs as she revealed Thursday plans for her first budget, taking her opposition to using city resources on the programs a step farther than she previously had.

Parker said last week that no money the city receives from legal settlements with opioid companies blamed for the city’s ongoing overdose epidemic would be used on syringe exchange, but it was unclear at that time whether other city resources could be allocated to the programs.

The mayor cleared that up during an emotional portion of her budget address to City Council on Thursday.

“While I’m the mayor, I will fight tooth and nail to make sure that not one city dollar is invested in the distribution of clean needles,” she said, adding: “We can’t afford here in the city of Philadelphia to appropriate our very scarce resources to do it.”

The policy would be a departure from her predecessors and could impact the largest and oldest syringe exchange program in Philadelphia, which receives hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the city to reduce the risk of drug users sharing needles and spreading disease. Parker, a Democrat who ran on a tough-on-crime platform, has made shutting down the open-air drug market in Kensington a key priority.

Her latest comments on syringe exchange funding met immediate resistance from advocates for “harm reduction,” the drug policy approach that aims to keep people alive until they are ready to seek treatment.

“Sterile syringes have a return on investment. They cost pennies on the dollar but create a cost savings” by preventing the spread of blood-borne illnesses like HIV and hepatitis C, said Robert Ashford, executive director of Unity Recovery, a Philadelphia recovery support organization that also distributes harm-reduction tools like syringes. “I don’t think our scarce resources should be allocated in a way that ends up in death and misery.”

Parker emphasized that her position is nuanced. She said her administration “supports an array of public health strategies” that experts say reduce the risk of overdose death, including opioid overdose reversal drugs and testing strips for people to detect if their supply contains fentanyl.

Distributing syringes technically violates state law. But it’s been done in Philadelphia for more than 30 years, since former Mayor Ed Rendell issued an executive order to allow exchanges to operate amid skyrocketing rates of HIV infections among people who injected drugs.

Parker has given no indication she intends to change that. She said Thursday that syringe exchange remains “an important part of the harm reduction strategy,” but that philanthropies, private business, or other government entities should fund it.

Leaders at Prevention Point, the Kensington-based public health organization for people in addiction, said losing city dollars would be “devastating” and cost lives.

Prevention Point currently receives $900,000 from the city a year for harm reduction services, including syringe exchange, said Silvana Mazzella, the group’s interim lead executive officer, in a statement Thursday. She said it can’t seek state dollars for syringe services because the state does not consider them legal.

Any loss of city funding, she said, would mean “a lifesaving program would have to be funded privately, which would be extremely challenging to do every year.”

“Philadelphia has been a beacon of public health innovation for three decades,” she said. “It would be alarming to backtrack on these gains, risking more deaths and increased pressure on our city’s already stressed larger health systems.”

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The harm reduction funding Prevention Point receives is part of $7 million dollars in total city funding the organization got last year for a variety of services it contracts with the city to provide, including outreach campaigns and operating a homeless shelter.

It’s unclear if or how the city might allocate dollars to Prevention Point under Parker. Budget documents with line items for contracts with providers weren’t available this week.

Asked Thursday if Prevention Point would lose city funding, Parker said only: “I’m not referencing any specific organizations, the only thing that I wanted to make clear in our budget process is that the city of Philadelphia will not fund any kind of needle exchange programs.”

Kensington is the epicenter of an opioid crisis that in 2022 killed a record 1,413 people in Philadelphia.

The mayor’s announcement comes after City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat who represents parts of Kensington, said last month that she might oppose city funding for Prevention Point, and urged a landlord to revoke the lease of Savage Sisters, another harm-reduction group on Kensington Avenue.

She said that she is not against syringe exchange services as a concept, but wants to address specific organizations she considers to be a nuisance.

Lozada said Thursday that Parker’s speech showed Kensington residents who have grown frustrated with the status quo that City Hall is “living up to its commitment.”

“The mayor was very clear today that if you are not on board with the work that is happening in Kensington, sit down, move out of the way, and let the work move on,” Lozada said. “Because the people of that community deserve it. They have not had quality of life for a really long time.”

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And Parker said Thursday that her administration “care[s] deeply about every person in addiction.”

“Focusing on their long-term care, housing, and access to economic opportunity to put them on a path to self-sufficiency, that is what helps people out of addiction,” she said. “And I’m ready to debate anybody who wants to have the conversation.”

Ashford, whose organization was one of three in the city that received funding from opioid lawsuit settlements to distribute sterile syringes, said advocates in the city are determined to continue to provide harm reduction tools to people in need.

“People have been doing this without political support far before any of these people were politicians,” he said. “We’re going to save lives with or without their support. We’re not sad, we’re angry — and we’re gonna fight back.”

Inquirer staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed reporting.