Help that leaves remnants …
This is how the residents of the Kensington neighborhood describe in Philadelphia services to homeless people and drug users in an outpatient way provided by the council.
These are food delivery trucks, medical services and even clothes.
“They make the revolu and we have to pick them up,” said Evelyn, one of the affected residents. “This is how you are not going to be able to fix anything because they clean one day and the other is the same.”
All this comes to light when there is a measure under the magnifying glass of the Municipal Council of Philadelphia that could limit the access of outpatient services buses. If the trucks were approved, they could operate at certain hours and sites by Lehight Avenue and Kensington Avenue.
The activists say that if they cannot offer their services “we are going to see more amputations, more overdose and more deaths. These people (the homeless) are members of the community, they are neighbors and we have to treat them with compassion and empathy.” This in a neighborhood that for years has been listed as the epicenter of the opioid crisis in the city of fraternal love.
The Councilor of District 7, Quetcy Lozada had a heated reaction in one of the hearings of law makers in Philadelphia in the face of the possible approval of the restrictions. “You will not be able to distribute food or services without permission and they will not be in the right place,” said the official.
Isabel Sánchez with the report from Kensington in Philadelphia.
Quetcy Lozada represents District 7 of Philadelphia.
