Mayor Parker plans to put $100M center for people in addiction next to jail complex
The site on State Road is owned by the city and is where the Kenney administration had agreed to construct a "tiny house village" as part of a 2020 agreement with activists.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker plans to spend more than $100 million to build a drug treatment center and shelter that can house more than 600 people in addiction next to the city’s jail complex in Northeast Philadelphia.
The mayor, who took office in January and has pledged to end open-air drug markets in the city while expanding drug treatment capacity, unveiled her plan to house people at 7979 State Rd. to members of City Council in closed-door meetings Tuesday.
Spokesperson Joe Grace said in a statement that the proposal “is the first step of many that the Parker administration is planning to implement.”
“The proposal includes focused law enforcement, and offering quality shelter and treatment options citywide to the people living on our streets, suffering from addictions, mental health challenges and physical illnesses, or unable to find safe shelter and housing,” he said.
Parker’s communication with Council came as lawmakers are in the final days of negotiating the mayor’s budget plan. Her nine-figure request to build so-called triage and wellness centers, part of an effort to dismantle drug markets, had become a sticking point for some Council members, who previously panned the plan as imprecise.
» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker proposes $100M to fund ‘triage and wellness facilities’ for people in addiction
On Tuesday, Parker and Managing Director Adam Thiel outlined a three-year, multiphase plan to construct the Riverview Wellness Village, which will offer services ranging from counseling to medication-assisted treatment to job training and connections to long-term housing, according to a recording of one briefing to Council members that was obtained by The Inquirer.
During the briefing, Thiel said the center would be operated by behavioral health providers contracted by the city, and he described a phased opening so some beds could be ready within the next year.
People would be brought to the site by outreach workers, he said, adding: “We may have folks who are on the site voluntarily, some who may not be there voluntarily.”
The site on State Road is owned by the city and is on the campus of Riverview Personal Care Home. In 2020, under then-Mayor Jim Kenney, the city committed to establishing a “tiny-house village” there for people who are homeless as part of an agreement with activists who erected a protest encampment on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Parker’s administration scrapped that plan earlier this year, and the mayor has repeatedly criticized the project, noting that the houses were not going to have indoor plumbing and calling it undignified.
The mayor on Tuesday acknowledged the optics of opening a facility for people in addiction so close to the city’s jails — and one that is surrounded by tall fencing — but she said her administration is prioritizing security and safety for the surrounding community.
“We are going to have to deal with the narrative that this is criminalizing addiction because the location is contiguous to the prison campus,” she told Council members. “In no way, shape or form, will I run from the fact that this will be a secure facility.”
City Councilmember Mike Driscoll, a Democrat whose 6th District includes the site, said he’ll work with the Parker administration to ensure the area is secure, and he wants residents of the surrounding community to be prioritized first to receive services at the center.
Driscoll also said a community advisory board should be established to evaluate operations on an ongoing basis.
“If you’re going to do a site, I think in a secure complex like a prison complex makes sense to me,“ Driscoll said in an interview. “Every Council person at some point says ‘well, not in my backyard,’ but in reality we will have to take some ownership of this.”
The mayor’s unveiling of her plan to Council stands in contrast to how lawmakers learned of her administration’s plan to convert a homeless shelter in Fairmount into a space that can accommodate people with substance-use disorder. The administration worked with third-party providers to add dozens of beds to the facility, a move they described as an expansion of existing services.
Members learned from The Inquirer in early May that city workers and addiction service providers were already working in the site at 2100 W. Girard Ave., and residents were incensed that they were not given a chance to weigh in. It came just as the administration was gearing up to clear an encampment in Kensington, the site of the largest open-air drug market in the city.
At the time, The Inquirer reported that the city intended to use the Girard Avenue space as a triage and wellness center — language the administration used in budget documents to describe its $100 million plan to serve people in addiction. A group of City Council members had previously used similar language to describe a place where people could be brought to either seek treatment or, potentially, face criminal charges for drug possession or nuisance crimes.
Parker’s administration has since stopped using the phrase “triage centers.” A spokesperson said in a statement that they are now referring to what they are building citywide as a “wellness ecosystem.”
Inquirer staff writers Sean Collins Walsh and Max Marin contributed to this article.