I’ve lived in Harrowgate, a block from Kensington and Allegheny avenues, for the last five years. I chose to live there because it allowed me, as a single mom, to buy a house and send my children to college without incurring debt. It’s one mile from our old family home, but it could not feel more different — not because of my neighbors and community. In fact this community has some of the brightest and highest quality people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. It’s different because of how this community is treated.
In my time here, I have been forced to become involved with everything opioid addiction-related, from cleaning my block daily, patrolling our park, reporting crimes, graffiti, and seeing users shooting up or having sex in public spaces, simply because of a one-mile change in my address. I think it is important to note that this is my first time living in a community of color. What my experience has led me to conclude is that Black and Brown lives truly don’t matter.
I was hopeful for change when Mayor Parker took office in January. Finally, there was a voice in power to affect the changes we have been crying for echoing ours. And there has been a change: Things in my neighborhood seem to have gotten worse.
Simply saying the word “plan” doesn’t make it a plan. It sounds and feels more like a “concept of a plan.”
So far, no good
Ever since the police efforts to sweep Kensington Avenue of drug users, it appears that we have lost ground gained over the past few years in securing safe and clean spaces. Our children have to walk past more users allowed to shoot up openly with needles sticking out of their necks and other body parts; or with gaping open wounds from tranq; more dealers harassing them or trying to recruit them to deal their drugs; more seniors are retreating to their homes because they have mobility issues and can’t navigate the sidewalks safely because of the increased needles, trash, urine, feces lining our sidewalks or just plain scared; not to mention the increased complaints from the working mothers and fathers who every day must navigate the unsafe and unsanitary conditions on their way to work on buses and subways with more of the same.
Now we have an encampment forming two blocks from my house that is being reported to the police daily. All of this is happening before “fire season,” where the users are allowed to build fires on sidewalks and other open spaces to keep warm. We must report this, too, because if we don’t there is the risk of the fire spreading to nearby buildings, which happens every “season.”
I’m trying to hold out hope, but I’m skeptical of what I have seen so far. Simply saying the word “plan” doesn’t make it a plan. It sounds and feels more like a “concept of a plan.” And because we are not part of the planning process under the Parker Administration (which is one notable shift from the prior administration), all we can go by is our experience. And what we are experiencing now feels heavier for the residents.
While we have great relationships with various city agencies like the Philadelphia Police Department and the Community Life Improvement Program, we have greater need to contact them as a result of the shift. I do hope our new mayor actually has actionable items that will provide relief as she promised; I am seeing a significant shift to non-belief by our community members in regard to these promises. I sense a stark realization by our community members that what was done has caused us more harm and that there may in fact be no end to the status quo.
I was hopeful for change when Mayor Parker took office. Finally, there was a voice in power to affect the changes we have been crying for … And there has been a change: Things in my neighborhood seem to have gotten worse.
The answer for Kensington is clear
Where do we go from here? That question strikes me as funny, because the answer is so obvious, yet no one is willing to make it a reality. The bottom line is that we already have in place strategies and laws that protect 90 percent of the city from becoming a containment zone like Kensington. Yet, we do not leverage those same strategies and laws in our community, and it makes me wonder why.
People cannot just occupy sidewalks, parks, and other public / private spaces anywhere else and claim it as theirs and then, in order to be removed we have to have an “eviction process” as if they actually have rights to the occupied spaces. But these are the strategies being implemented and prioritized in our community.
We should get the same treatment as the rest of our fellow Philadelphians across the city. We should get the same responses from city officials to bad acts/actors doing crime in our community. And, we should see the same all hands on deck approach to ensure the safety of our residents like we see when bad things happen in Center City.
We should hear from our city officials in a unified voice and cry of outrage and resolve to stop these things from happening in our community. We should benefit from the same thoughtful commitment from our city officials to implement actionable items to ensure safety for our residents — i.e. a plan. We do not want to hear about, as Mayor Parker put it, “building the plane while trying to fly it;” that does not give us hope. It makes the failures feel larger.
I don’t believe that we are asking for anything special. We are asking to have a say in what resources should be here. We are asking to have a say as to how those resources are leveraged to impact our community. We are asking to have a say in what businesses and organizations come to serve, and what population they intend to target, and how they do it. Kensington residents are asking to have a seat at the table and sit down with our leaders and voice our concerns over what we are seeing and not to be made to feel like outsiders who are trapped in their homes while intruders have taken over.
No one wants this “plan” to work more than the residents who live here.
Sonja Bingham is a resident of Harrowgate in Philadelphia.
The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.
