Kids’ Campaign unveils a youth-focused to-do list for the next mayor

There are 322,000 children in Philadelphia with very different life paths.

It is for the children with the most difficult pathway that the Kids’ Campaign is pushing a youth-oriented to-do list of proven best practices to be part of the next mayor’s first-year agenda.

It’s for the 1 in 3 youth who live below the poverty line, those aging out of foster care and into homelessness, the 8 out of 10 fourth graders who aren’t proficient in reading, which will severely impact their earning ability as adults.

The Kids’ Campaign, a nonpartisan collaboration of more than 100 local youth-serving agencies, had its initial opening in January and, according to Symbol Lai, Children First’s Philadelphia mobilization and policy director, the groups have meet over the last year to create a platform called SECURE — Safety, Education, Careers, Uplifting families, Recreation, and the Environment.

“Philadelphia has some really big problems,” Lai said at a recent unveiling of the Kids’ Campaign platform. “None is bigger than violence.”

As of Monday, there have been 1,113 nonfatal and 320 fatal shooting victims, according to the City Controller’s Office. More than 147 of them were children.

But children living near a shooting are also harmed.

According to a 2021 study from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, there are mental health concerns in the short term, but also long-term effects that include lower test scores and problems finding a job or finishing college.

“Police resources must be devoted to driving down shootings and homicides. However, their attention is often called to mediate low-level infractions from children and youth,” according to the agenda.

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Both mayoral candidates — Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh — agree that curtailing gun violence means the city needs to hire more police officers but believe their focus should be on building better relationships with the communities they serve.

There are more than 70 action items in the SECURE agenda that the coalition will send to the new mayor with suggestions for governmental agencies and nonprofit support organizations alike.

These include very specific requests such as expanding the landlord program that rents to youth transitioning out of foster care. It is estimated that 36% to 46% of those experiencing homelessness in the city spent time in foster care. Or creating a family navigator hotline to help families connect to available resources.

The agenda also calls for expanding the benefits that families can apply for at BenePhilly Centers — which offer free, individualized help to enroll residents in public benefit programs — including rental assistance, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Women, Infants & Children (WIC), a supplemental nutrition program.

There are also suggestions that are more aspirational and lack a to-do component, such as: “To make sure children are supported in their education from the earliest ages to end the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Shaun Elliott, president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia YMCA, said that the “solutions were really longer-term opportunities” and not quick fixes, where youth can “find hope, character development and opportunities.”

What was noticeably absent from the plan was the total price tag and who was going to foot the bill for transforming Philadelphia into the “best city for raising kids.”

There were hints of costs.

Wendy-Anne Roberts-Johnson, executive director of Philadelphia Youth Network, said it would cost $20 million to provide 10,000 summer jobs.

Dontae Privette, director of community engagement for the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, calculated the cost of providing high-quality recreational activities for 80,000 children. “Philadelphia currently spends $50 per citizen,” Privette said. It’s a number he would like to see boosted to be more on par with Baltimore at $80 a person, or, better still, Houston at $130.

Elliott of the Greater Philadelphia Y said that each out-of-school time spot costs $500 a month.

The agenda also suggested that half of the savings from reducing youth incarceration and turning to school-based and community-based diversion programs could be reinvested into diversion programs.

“Locking up kids leads to rearrests for kids and decreased income when they are adults,” said Stefanie Arbutina, policy director of Children First Vulnerable Youth, who added that incarceration is also the most expensive option.

“Invest in diversion and stop the cycle we are on right now,” Arbutina said.