On Tuesday night, more than 20 top City officials and residents testified about quality of life issues in Harrowgate and Kensington at a public hearing at Conwell Middle School.
The hearing was held by Philadelphia City Council’s Public Safety Committee as a result of District 7 Councilmember Quetcy Lozada’s recent resolutions. One resolution called for a series of public hearings about the open-air drug market. Another called for a Kensington “Marshall Stabilization and Recovery Plan.”
The council committee held the first public hearing following Lozada’s resolution at Conwell on May 9. The second public hearing was rescheduled from June 12 to July 18 due to the I-95 collapse.
In addition to Lozada, committee members Curtis Jones Jr. (Chair, District 4), Kenyatta Johnson (District 2), Jamie Gauthier (District 3), Kendra Brooks (At-Large), and Jim Harrity (At-Large) were also in attendance. Committee member Isaiah Thomas (At-Large) was absent. Mark Squilla (District 1), who is not on the committee, was there.
Notably, Councilmember Mike Driscoll (District 6), who is not on the public safety committee but beginning in January will represent a portion of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues through the Northeast, did not attend.
“We want to know what you’re planning to do moving forward that is different from what you’re currently doing that will help us change and improve the quality of life in the Kensington and Harrowgate community,” Lozada said.
The hearing spanned four hours, most of which committee members focused on questioning officials from the Opioid Response Unit, Philadelphia Police Department, and District Attorney’s Office. Across testimonies, common topics included drug use, service permits and provision, sanitation, and retail theft.
“I just walked the community today, with providers who are supposed to get grants or get money from the city, federal and state money to clean this neighborhood,” said Lozada. “In all honesty, when you walk this neighborhood, do you think that they’re doing their jobs? In all honesty, is this the conditions that you would let your family walk around in?”
Although Lozada authored the hearings resolution, Harrity, a Kensington resident, dominated with comments and questions.
“As not only a councilman but as a resident, enough’s enough,” Harrity said. “My residents, my neighbors are good people – they’re just scared. And they should be able to come out of their house; the kids should be able to play.”
During that time, Harrity held the Opioid Response Unit’s Noelle Foizen responsible for the poor quality of life in the neighborhood.
“For me, it all starts with you, madam conductor, being a good conductor, and leading the symphony of departments that you have under you and the electeds in the room that are also coordinating,” Harrity said. “No disrespect, but if I got to pick somebody that’s on my list, you’re on my list.”
Harrity also interrupted District Attorney Larry Krasner, who repeatedly tried to introduce Jeffrey Hojnowski, an assistant district attorney from the homicide and non-fatal shooting unit.
“You can let him go and prosecute homicide cases – that’s great,” said Harrity. “The testimony we want to hear is about what’s happening with our quality of life.”
Lozada pushed Krasner and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw for retail theft arrest, prosecution, and conviction data. She also emphasized finding someone to blame.
“At some point, everyone in this room has to realize that we have failed this community as a result of people not wanting to say, ‘This is the person who said I should not do it, or this is the person that says I have to stop doing it, or I can’t do it,’” Lozada said. “That has to end.”
While Krasner said he has prosecuted 99% of retail theft cases, he said that many of those cases fail because the victims and witnesses don’t show up in court. But he also emphasized his belief that convictions don’t address the underlying issues.
“Here’s the reality: We had one guy who had something like 50, maybe 56 retail theft cases, we prosecuted him as a felony,” Krasner said. “We put him in state prison, he completed his state sentence – I think he did two years on that thing – and he then came out and did it again.”
Meanwhile, Outlaw told Lozada that “there isn’t a somebody.” Instead, she pointed to police demoralization.
“We are human beings,” Outlaw said. “If we make an arrest and we see that this person is back out on the street, after so many arrests, and so many returns back on the street, human beings are going to shut down and say, ‘Well, you know what? Maybe this isn’t the way I’m supposed to be doing it.’”
It was nearly 8:30 p.m. when the committee called on a panel of education, transportation, voter engagement, and youth justice officials to testify.
But shortly after the SEPTA police began their testimony, there was an audible exit. Outlaw and at least 10 other high-ranking police officials abruptly left because five people were shot at Wyoming and D Streets. The shooting victims were all Black or Latine, ranging in age from 17 to 68.
“We’re sitting here in shock,” said Councilman Curtis Jones, Jr., the committee’s chair. “We’ve just gotten news that [five] people were shot in the 25th District.”
Throughout the night, many testimonies also emphasized the community-level trauma children are exposed to while in the neighborhood – an exposure that has been consistently linked to poor health outcomes later in life. However, school officials were the last to testify. By then, the air conditioner was off, and the crowd was mostly gone.
“I was at Willard School when it was shot at three times – Willard School across the street,” said Kevin Bethel, the chief of school safety for the School District of Philadelphia. “The last time we had a shooting was on Jasper Street when bullets entered the classroom. The kids had just left the classroom a half an hour before that… I sat there with a teacher who was sitting there in tears.”
School officials explained that there are buses and vans that drive some of the kids to school so they can avoid walking through the neighborhood. But still, the gun violence and overdose crises have spilled onto school properties.
“I’ve had deaths at the doorsteps of my schools,” Bethel said. “Do you know what it’s like to go to the school and have [to go] around the other side of the school because sitting in the front lobby … is someone who OD-ed in the entryway of the school?”
Bethel’s stories connected to earlier testimonies about the intergenerational nature of trauma and the interconnected nature of the discussed quality of life issues.
“Drug addiction is a mental illness, and I understand that people think these are choices and some of the frustration from the community regarding what this looks like and how this impacts them,” said Keisha Hudson, chief defender for the Defender Association of Philadelphia. “But I was also happy to hear the testimony of the community member talk about what her child witnesses because I have to tell you, that child who’s walking by and stepping over a needle or exposed to deep, deep trauma is going to be my client.”
Three residents were invited to testify following the school district. But at 9:20 p.m., when the committee called on them, none of them were there.
Still, earlier that night, there were several bursts of applause and spontaneous testimonies from the crowd about the acceptability of living conditions due to the neighborhood’s open-air drug market and use.
“We watched last month, when we had a crisis in our city, how every agency lined up – state, local, federal – everybody lined up, we fixed Interstate 95 in less than two weeks,” said Sonja Bingham, president of the Friends of Harrowgate Park group. “We don’t need $70 million. We need the same principle I run my house – you can’t be here.”
Other residents emphasized the concentration of services to the neighborhood’s main corridors.
“Spread it out in the city instead of it always being here,” said Shannon Farrell, president of the Harrowgate Civic Association. “…The people who live on our streets come from all over for the City services. It can’t all be here all the time.”
Here’s who testified
Here is who testified in the order that they testified:
- Noelle Foizen, Director of the Opioid Response Unit
- Danielle Outlaw, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department
- Krista Dahl-Campbell, Deputy Commissioner of Organizational Services of Philadelphia Police Department
- Eva Gladstein, Deputy Managing Director of Health and Human Services
- Cheryl Bettigole, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Public Health
- Shannon Farrell, President of the Harrowgate Civic Association
- Jill Bowen, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services
- Sonja Bingham, President of Friends of Harrowgate Park
- Roz Pichardo, community member
- Larry Krasner, Philadelphia District Attorney
- Frank Vanore, Deputy Commissioner of Investigations
- Karen Fegely, Deputy Commerce Director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives
- Denis Murphy, Deputy Commerce Director of the Office of Corridor Improvements and Business Service
- Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender of Defender Association of Philadelphia
- Charles Lawson, SEPTA Transit Police Chief
- Scott Sauer, SEPTA Chief Operating Officer
- Lisa Deely, Chairwoman of Philadelphia City Commissioners
- Kevin Bethel, Chief of School Safety for the School District of Philadelphia
- Karyn Lynch, Chief of Student Support Services for the School District of Philadelphia
- Tomás Hanna, Associate Superintendent, secondary for the School District of Philadelphia
*Editor’s note: There were two community members who gave testimony who did not state their name for the record. Kensington Voice could not confirm their identities at time of publication. Full meeting transcripts can be found here.
Kensington Voice Editor Siani Colón assisted with reporting.
Editors: Siani Colón / Designer: Jillian Bauer-Reese
