Mayor Parker’s administration and advocates say a tense encounter threw off Kensington encampment clearing

A tense encounter between police and advocates for the homeless precipitated the dismantling of a Kensington encampment last week, according to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration and witnesses who said the episode altered plans for the clearing and led people to scatter through the neighborhood.

But the sides describe the early-morning incident in starkly different terms.

According to a joint statement released by Parker’s office and the Philadelphia Police Department, officers were securing a perimeter around two blocks of Kensington Avenue last Wednesday morning when a half-dozen advocates refused orders to move. The officials said that officers used bicycles to push them back, and while they were doing so, people who were living on the block left voluntarily amid the discord.

However, eight people who were there said in interviews that officers told people living on the street to leave the area, even though city social service workers hadn’t yet arrived. Witnesses said sanitation workers sprayed water down the street and used leaf blowers near people sitting or laying on the sidewalk, leading them to flee before outreach teams got there.

For weeks, officials said the process would be led by city social service workers, but none were on scene when police arrived just before 7 a.m.

The Parker administration’s explanation of why comes amid scrutiny of how the city handled the encampment clearing, the mayor’s most visible action yet to dismantle the yearslong, open-air drug market in Kensington.

Lawmakers said they were confused why outreach teams didn’t lead the operation. Residents complained that people who had been living on the avenue ended up on adjacent residential blocks. The Citizens Police Oversight Commission expressed “profound concern” and said it will conduct an investigation of the clearing.

But the Parker administration said the effort on the 3000 and 3100 blocks of Kensington Avenue was a success. Outreach teams worked through the day and night to locate people on nearby blocks and connect them with medical services, treatment, and shelter. According to the administration, 31 people were placed into shelter or treatment on Wednesday alone — 59 in total since early April.

And, despite fears that people in addiction could be incarcerated for low-level crimes, no one was arrested.

City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, a Democrat who represents Kensington, delivered an impassioned speech in defense of city workers Thursday, saying they “did what they were trained to do and went to find people.”

She said dozens of families could sleep better last week knowing their loved ones who had been living on the street were, at least for a time, sheltered.

“It may not have been how I wanted to see it, it may not have been how the community wanted to see it, it may not have been the ideal situation, folks may still be in the surrounding area. But we responded,” Lozada said. “I’m hopeful that the residents of Kensington, that this administration, that all of you stay committed to fighting for a better quality of life for the children and families of that community.”

» READ MORE: Philly police and city workers dismantled a Kensington encampment Wednesday

Others have been far more critical of the operation, particularly those who work in harm reduction, the public health strategy to keep people who use drugs alive until they are ready to enter treatment.

Sarah Laurel, the executive director at Savage Sisters, a nonprofit that offers wound care and other harm reduction services, said the clearing was led more by law enforcement than past clearings. She took videos of officers ushering people outside a taped-off area without city outreach workers.

About an hour later, city officials and police brass toured the depopulated area.

“It looked like a photo op,” Laurel said, “and it didn’t look like much else.”

About a month ago, when the city posted notices that an encampment on Kensington Avenue would be cleared, about 75 people were living in the area, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said. Some accepted housing or treatment before last Wednesday, and the city expected to engage with about 20 people still camped on the sidewalks.

Outreach squads with social workers and behavioral health specialists were scheduled to meet with officers supporting their work at 8 a.m., and teams were to start engaging with people living on the blocks at about 8:30 a.m. Sanitation teams were to clean the area and remove debris at 10 a.m.

On Wednesday, Philadelphia police officers arrived just before 7 a.m. to set up barriers and secure the area, a measure the city said is standard procedure for a variety of events, including encampment clearings.

According to the mayor’s office and police, six to 10 people who identified themselves as outreach workers and advocates “attempted to interrupt the officers as they were setting up a perimeter with police tape and their bicycles.” Police said that officers told the advocates that they were not removing people from the encampment and that social service workers were on their way.

Some of the advocates in question were with a group called Concerned Harm Reductionists United, a coalition of people who work in Kensington and were there to support those who were homeless by helping them pack their belongings, providing water and clothing, and offering transportation to shelters or treatment.

They were working alongside Aine Fox, a legal observer with Up Against the Law Legal Collective, who has for more than a decade attended protests and other public events to support the legal rights of activists.

Fox said police approached the advocates and told them to leave the cordoned-off area. She said she also saw and heard a police officer tell people standing in front of tents: “You need to move.”

“The idea that we interfered with services is absolutely ridiculous,” Fox said. “Officers never communicated to us that they weren’t telling people to leave.”

When the advocates wouldn’t leave, officers used their bikes as barriers and pushed them off of Kensington Avenue and onto a side street.

Surveillance footage viewed by The Inquirer shows about a half-dozen officers moving four advocates. Another video captures officers escorting people away and onto side streets. A woman living on the avenue can be heard saying, “It’s a whole bunch of cops out here, but nobody to help us.”

Several advocates remained in the cordoned-off area and continued to assist encampment residents. Eva Fitch, one of the harm reduction advocates, said street sweepers and city workers with leaf blowers then moved in on the camp.

”There wasn’t an option to stay,” Fitch said. “People were surrounded by police as [city workers] drenched their belongings in street water and blew them with leaf blowers.”

City outreach teams arrived on the scene at about 8 a.m. after many of the people who had been living on the street left the area. Officials said those social service workers scoured the neighborhood for hours, locating people on side streets and residential blocks to bring them into treatment.

During past encampment clearings — there have been five major clearings in the neighborhood since 2017 — city outreach workers also packed and stored people’s personal belongings for at least 30 days while they were in treatment or shelter, under the city’s policy.

On Wednesday, sanitation workers threw away items left on sidewalks after people had scattered.

According to a statement from the Parker administration, the space was cleaned early due to “the unexpected activity that precipitated early action.” Officials are “reviewing any issues surrounding any belongings of the individuals who left the encampment voluntarily,” the statement said.

Councilmember Nicolas O’Rourke, a member of the progressive Working Families Party, said he’s concerned that city workers may have thrown away important documents or other personal possessions that belonged to the people who were unhoused, saying, “Why would we be so dismissive about human beings’ belongings?”

He referenced comments Parker has made indicating that her strategy in Kensington is a work in progress.

“They’ve said we’re going to make mistakes,” O’Rourke said. “It feels to me that we’re saying all these things almost to give cover for when we do them, because we expect to do them. And, to me, that’s not operating in good faith and I don’t think that’s good governance.”