Kensington’s Love Lot is a new hub for harm reduction and community healing

“Make it colorful, make it bright, make it inviting.”

The instructions were clear to Jacob C. Hammes, the artist in charge of transforming the vacant lot next to the Kensington harm reduction organization Prevention Point. Hammes, who lives and works in Kensington, spent last summer volunteering with Prevention Point, primarily working on food service and asking participants about how the space should be reimagined.

“The elements that seemed important were [ideas] of hope and dignity. Growth and change and the possibility of coming out on the other side of something,” he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, Prevention Point officially dedicated the “Love Lot.” In collaboration with Mural Arts, Prevention Point, one of the city’s leaders in harm reduction and host of Philly’s oldest needle collection program, enlisted Hammes to remake the barren lot into a vibrant community hub and a welcoming space for their services. The organization has used the lot since acquiring it in 2021 for food service, public restrooms, medical care, public events, and other programming, all of which will continue.

“We’re trying to make a space where the door is always open,” said Silvana Mazzella, the interim lead executive officer at Prevention Point. “You may not be ready for something today, but if we make it as warm and welcoming and trust inspiring as possible, you will come back.”

The Love Lot is filled with art and greenery, including a large mural painted by Ashley Flynn on removable wooden boards so that fresh pieces can rotate in the space. Native Pennsylvania wildflowers hang above one wall, and sturdy tree stumps serve as movable seating that feels less sterile than metal chairs. Music speakers are tucked into the corners, and a section of the Prevention Point building wall is adorned with different kinds of fruit, which participants helped Hammes paint over several sessions.

But no piece is more personal to community members than the “Memory Wall.” Hammes and two artists in residence with Prevention Point, Kathryn Pannepacker and Lisa Kelley, originally envisioned a memorial project for the lot.

“Everybody out here has lost people. There’s a lot of tragedy that you see. It’s unavoidable,” he said.

“Every week we put out a table and a picnic canopy and clay tiles. We asked people at first if they had any loved ones that they wanted to remember,” he said. Each person could design their own clay tile and use letter stamps to write their loved ones’ names.

But as the project went on, its scope widened. Some community members told the artists that they didn’t want to only memorialize those who’ve passed on. Some wanted to write inspirational messages and encourage others to keep going. “Recovery works” and “love hurts today” and “keep the hope alive” read some of those tiles.

Prevention Point sees a clear need to continue expanding their work and connect with more people; drug use has risen nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and Prevention Point itself reported serving triple the number of people annually as it did in 2019.

While it addresses this surge of need, the organization has its own issues that it is continuing to sort through. Former employees have described unsafe and unsanitary conditions at Prevention Point’s building and called for new leadership; former executive director Jose Benitez resigned in April.

“We’re trying to make a space where the door is always open.”

And then there is a persistent tension between the organization and others like it with some longtime Kensington community members, who are sick of drug use being allowed in their neighborhood. They fear for their safety, and want stronger policing to discourage the drug trade and addiction around them.

“I think they’re in a sometimes impossible situation,” said Bill McKinney, executive director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation, pointing to the scope of the national crisis. “I think because there’s been so many broken things [with Prevention Point], like whether they’re promises, whether they’re relationships [with community members], they’re starting deep in a hole always. And that’s a complicated space to work.”

He explained that the Kensington community is not monolith, particularly when it comes to feelings about Prevention Point and how harm reduction services impact their neighborhood; plenty of people support their work. McKinney attended the Love Lot dedication on Tuesday, and hopes that the space positively impacts the community as a whole.

“I hope that they do it in a way that serves the whole community.”

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“We’ve really tried to be part of the community and support the community. [But] we can always do more,” Mazzella said. “So yes, this is even more work to make an inviting space for the community.”

While those behind the Love Lot are empathetic, they’re still committed most to Prevention Point’s participants. At the back of the Love Lot, where a fence sits between the space and Kensington Avenue with the El buzzing overhead, a multicolored mural reads “Yes In Our Backyard!”

“This is, I think probably the most political statement in the lot,” Hammes said, describing how well-meaning people often acknowledge the need for harm reduction but don’t want it to take place near them.

“[That is] something that’s holding back real community healing. And I think ‘yes in our backyard’ is what this place represents.”