All eyes are on Kensington as Parker administration plans to clear homeless from a main corridor

Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel gave something to Kensington residents last week that they say they’ve wanted from the city for years: an apology.

“You have the absolute right to be frustrated,” the city’s top cop told a woman who described the conditions in her neighborhood and said she was sorry for getting angry. He responded: “Don’t you apologize. We owe you an apology.”

Bethel told residents who gathered at a community meeting that his department could not end the open-air drug market overnight, but he promised that change is coming under the leadership of a new administration.

And it could be as early as this week.

Bethel and other top officials in Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration are planning for city workers to clear people from the sidewalks along a two-block stretch of Kensington Avenue. The effort the city refers to as an “encampment resolution” is not a new concept — it has been conducted many times in the past — but comes amid City Hall’s intense focus on Kensington.

The clearing, scheduled for Wednesday, will be the most visible action the Parker administration has taken yet in the neighborhood long plagued by the drug trade and where residents say conditions have dramatically deteriorated over the last several years. Open drug use is common, as is the gun violence driven by the estimated billion-dollar opioid trade.

» READ MORE: Mayor Parker unveils aggressive public safety goals and Kensington strategy

City health officials estimate that at least 675 people are homeless in the neighborhood — hundreds more than just four years ago — and Managing Director Adam K. Thiel has said that is likely “understated.” The majority of those people are in addiction, and many have open wounds associated with the use of xylazine, a toxic component in the drug supply.

Not all of them will be swept up in this week’s encampment clearing — Bethel has estimated that about 75 people are living in the targeted area near Kensington and Allegheny. Outreach workers have been in the neighborhood for weeks, warning people of the impending clearing, offering connections to social services, and drafting a list of people living on the streets.

And city officials, from Council members to police, have held community meetings in the neighborhood to discuss the plans. Parker will appear at a town hall meeting at a Kensington Avenue chapel Tuesday evening, mere hours before the clearing is scheduled to begin.

Questions still remain about the encampment clearing and the impact of the city’s broader plan to stabilize Kensington.

The administration last month released a five-phase strategy that includes attempting to “remove the presence of drug users” from the neighborhood. The plan describes a multi-day initiative during which police will arrest people for crimes including drug possession and prostitution — offenses the city hasn’t targeted in years.

But Thiel, whose office is leading the planning around the strategy in Kensington, has said the encampment clearing this week is separate from that police initiative. In the past, encampment clearings have been led by workers from social service agencies who attempt to connect people to treatment or shelter before their belongings are cleared from the sidewalks.

» READ MORE: Mayor Parker’s plan to ‘remove the presence of drug users’ from Kensington raises new questions

In addition, city policy is to have a shelter or treatment bed available to anyone who is homeless and living in an encampment, but people are not required to accept that. Some community leaders in other neighborhoods say they have seen an increase lately in visible homelessness.

“More and more I’m finding them coming over and yet I don’t have any support,” Kenneth Paul, president of the Port Richmond on Patrol and Civic group, told Bethel last week. “I don’t want my neighborhood turning into what [Kensington] has turned into.”

Bethel said the department anticipates that people leaving Kensington will migrate to other locations and may continue to be unhoused.

“We anticipate a robust effort down here to address displacement,” he said. “Our model will be built not just around the Kensington corridor.”

As for people seeking treatment or shelter, there are questions about capacity and where people with complex health needs will receive appropriate medical care.

During a City Council hearing about Parker’s proposed budget in mid-April, health officials said the city has about 1,000 treatment beds for people with substance use disorder. Jill Bowen, the now-former commissioner of the Department of Behavioral Health, said the number of available beds fluctuates, but as of April 15, 109 were available.

Bowen said the city has overflow space and can be “prepared for a surge.”

Parker’s administration says it has been working to increase capacity at shelters and treatment centers. Last week, the city announced an expansion of a shelter in Fairmount now staffed with addiction service providers where people leaving Kensington could be placed.

But the site drew controversy. It remained unclear whether police would refer people to site, and top officials, including the head of the Defender Association, said they were caught off-guard. City Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., whose district includes the site, said he wasn’t consulted.

“It is unacceptable to undertake such a significant project without consulting the communities and stakeholders who will be most affected,” he said in a statement.

The encampment clearing also comes as Parker has been criticized for other tenets of her opioid strategy.

Perhaps most controversial has been her proposal to strip nearly $1 million in funding from Prevention Point Philadelphia for its syringe exchange program, which has for decades provided sterile syringes to people who use drugs as a means of reducing exposure to HIV and other bloodborne illnesses.

Last week, City Councilmember Kendra Brooks, of the progressive Working Families Party, delivered a speech after members introduced a resolution to declare May “Hepatitis Awareness Month.” She explained that hepatitis can be spread through shared needles.

“With the dramatic loss of funding for safe needle exchange in Philadelphia, it will become even more difficult to combat,” she said.

Parker has defended her position. During a town hall meeting with hundreds of Northwest Philadelphia residents last month, Parker said syringe exchange and other harm reduction strategies are important, but “long-term care, treatment, and housing is how people in addiction end up beating the addiction and be put on a path to self sufficiency.”

She said providing tools for continued drug use is “like you telling me you have no faith ... that they can beat this thing.”

“When you shout that I’ve got blood on my hands, when you tell me I’m killing people, I want you to remember I love people and I believe in people,” Parker said. “Know your mayor believes in you. I think you can beat it. I saw people I love beat it. I know you can beat it.”

She received a standing ovation.

Staff writers Max Marin, Samantha Melamed, Ellie Rushing, and Aubrey Whelan contributed to this article.