Harm reduction advocates protest Philly City Council and Mayor Parker

Dozens of harm reduction activists circled City Hall on Thursday to protest lawmakers who have in recent weeks sought to shut down Kensington-based harm reduction organizations that provide often-lifesaving services to people living in addiction on the streets.

The demonstration was led by Savage Sisters, a harm reduction group that recently lost its lease on Kensington Avenue following an intervention from City Hall.

For two years, the nonprofit organization has provided showers, wound care, and other services from a storefront beneath the El tracks. Last month, Councilmember Quetcy Lozada accused the group of being bad neighbors and also expressed “serious concern” about nearby Prevention Point, the most well-known addiction resource center along Kensington Avenue.

Flanked by poster board signs that read “no more dead friends” and “harm reduction saves lives,” activists warned that pushing such groups out of the neighborhood would lead to more overdose deaths, infectious disease outbreaks, and a higher burden for both health care providers and the police.

“For years I’ve watched a public health crisis continue to wreak havoc amongst our communities,” said Savage Sisters founder Sarah Laurel. “After decades of failed drug policy, history continues to repeat itself and the city lacks accountability.”

The debate around harm reduction — a public health strategy to keep drug users alive until they are ready to enter treatment — has intensified since Mayor Cherelle L. Parker took office on a vow to stabilize Kensington and end the open-air drug market. On Wednesday, The Inquirer reported that the Parker administration will no longer allow opioid settlement dollars to fund services that provide people with items for safer drug use, such as syringe exchange services.

In City Hall on Thursday, however, City Council members who have been leading the charge for a new approach in Kensington said they aren’t opposed to harm reduction as a practice, including syringe exchange services, but are focused on addressing organizations they consider to be a nuisance.

Lozada, a Democrat who represents parts of Kensington, said harm reduction has been a prominent part of the city’s strategy in Kensington. The next chapter will require a different approach — but that does not mean casting aside proven practices.

“It is absolutely necessary for us as individual elected members and as a legislative body to change how we are doing things,” she said. “That change will be uncomfortable. It will not be easy, and it will require a multipronged approach.”

Parker, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, and Managing Director Adam Thiel are expected to release a more detailed plan for Kensington sometime next month. Lozada said the city’s approach to the neighborhood should include plans for housing, addiction treatment, opportunities for recovery, and harm reduction services, including syringe exchange.

“We’re going to need it all,” she said. “But we have to do it differently, because how we have been doing it has not worked.”

Councilmember Jim Harrity, a Democrat who lives in Kensington, reiterated that, saying “we’re not getting rid of harm reduction.”

“We know that harm reduction is an important part of what we’re trying to do,” he said. “It just has to be done right.”

Kensington’s problems are vast: The zip code that encompasses Kensington sees more overdose deaths than any other in the city. Gun violence fueled by the drug trade skyrocketed during the pandemic. Most residents live in deep poverty. And the homeless population has become more visible, while the rise of xylazine, or “tranq,” in the drug supply has left many users with necrotic flesh wounds.

Roz Pichardo, a Kensington resident and activist, said harm reduction could, at the minimum, help reduce the death toll of the ongoing crisis.

On City Hall’s north apron, Pichardo read aloud from a a book where she chronicles every overdose she has reversed with naloxone — 2,232 overdoses since 2018, she said. Even with the opioid-reversing antidote known as Narcan, not everyone makes it.

A man in his mid-30s required two doses: “He lived,” Pichardo said. Another, four doses. “He didn’t,” she said. “These are the sad stories that we hear countless times.”

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, a member of the progressive Working Families Party who represents the city at-large, attended the protest Thursday and said afterward that he wanted to show he is in favor of harm reduction approaches backed by research.

“It is really, really, really important that we legislators approach addressing these issues with the science we have available,” he said.