Philly lawmakers advanced a bill to restrict where mobile addiction services operate in Kensington following heated hearing

Philadelphia lawmakers on Monday advanced legislation that would restrict where mobile addiction services operate in Kensington following an emotional hearing marked by disagreements between providers and City Council members.

Lawmakers on Council’s Committee on Licenses and Inspections voted 3-1 to approve the bill, which prohibits mobile units that provide medical care and supplies from operating on residential blocks and near schools, as well as within 100 feet of one another. City-operated services are exempt from the restrictions that only apply in the city’s 6th and 7th Council Districts, which include parts of Kensington and stretch from Hunting Park to the Lower Northeast.

The full Council could take a final vote on the legislation as early as next week. If it passes, it would go to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s desk, and if she approved, take effect within 90 days.

The bill is part of a concerted effort out of City Hall to address the open-air drug market in Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s opioid epidemic and where hundreds of people live on the street. Council members who support the legislation said the mobile units — which are typically vans staffed by medical professionals or volunteers who provide food and medical services like wound care — are unregulated and park in residential areas, attracting nuisance crime and leaving trash strewn about.

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City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat who represents the 7th District and the author of the legislation, said her goal is to prevent service providers from congregating near schools or homes. Lozada said she wrote the legislation after she asked the administration to create a schedule or map to better coordinate the services, “but it didn’t happen.”

“The goal is not to end mobile provider services,” Lozada said. “The goal of this bill is to ensure that we’re not disrupting the day-to-day lives of people on residential blocks.”

Roberto Rodriguez, a commercial corridor manager for Impact Community Development Corporation in Kensington, added that the unregulated nature of mobile service providers creates a “serious public health hazard” for small businesses and residents.

“While I recognize the good intention behind distributing food and other goods to those in need, the reality is that this practice has been devastating to our neighborhood,” he said.

But Parker’s health commissioner, Frank Franklin, told the committee the administration supports the bill but said that the language is ambiguous and that enforcing it could be a challenge.

An array of service providers, from representatives of hospital systems to individual activists, testified against the legislation, saying the restrictions could make it hard to reach the people they intend to serve. Several said the legislation doesn’t address the underlying problems that plague the neighborhood, but instead targets the response.

“I wish I could say that people are flocking to Kensington for excellent, free health care, but that’s not what’s happening there,” said Kara Cohen, a nurse who works in street outreach with Project HOME, a nationally renowned anti-homelessness nonprofit. “They’re there because of an open-air drug market, and they’re there because of the drug dealers.”

Candice Player, Project HOME’s vice president of advocacy and street outreach, said the group’s teams respond to calls for help and provide a range of services, including medical care, to people across the city. But she said the legislation would impede their ability to connect with people in Kensington by restricting where they can respond.

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In what turned into a heated exchange, City Councilmember Jim Harrity, a Democrat who lives in Kensington, repeatedly asked Player for “the number of homeless addicts that you took off the streets of Kensington” and put into housing. She said she didn’t have a number, but noted the organization has more than 1,000 units of housing open to people with histories of homelessness and addiction.

Harrity — who has been open about his own recovery from addiction — said Player couldn’t answer a “simple” question and suggested the organization hasn’t prioritized getting people in Kensington off the streets.

“If you keep giving addicts stuff that they don’t have, they have less of a reason to get to recovery,” he said.

Lozada said similarly that she is fighting for longtime Kensington residents, who she said have been deprioritized through the city’s focus on harm reduction, which aims to keep people in addiction alive until they are ready to seek treatment.

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Lozada, who has led efforts to change how the city addresses the crisis in Kensington, got into a spirited back-and-forth with the Rev. Phillip Geliebter, an archdeacon with the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania who works in street outreach in Kensington.

He explained that serving people in the neighborhood is a key part of his faith, and he was critical of the bill, saying it would prevent mobile service providers “from most of the areas in Kensington.”

“What that’s going to do is harm and kill unhoused residents in Kensington,” he said.

Lozada said that she, too, is a person of faith, and that she is called to ensure the entire community’s safety.

“We have prioritized harm reduction and the harm reduction way for a very long time while ignoring an entire community of people,” she said. “We have a responsibly as a government and as people of faith to respond to the needs of both populations.”

City Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, of the progressive Working Families Party, was the only member to vote against advancing the legislation, saying it doesn’t address the roots of the problem.

“If this is the work that is keeping people alive, giving them the opportunity to survive a dark time, we can’t just sweep it off the board,” O’Rourke said. “Philadelphians who choose to help those in need do not need more hurdles to jump through. They need our help.”