Special Committee on Kensington, February 25, 2025

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON KENSINGTON Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106 Tuesday, February 25, 2025 10:05 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA, CHAIR COUNCILMAN CURTIS JONES, JR., VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY

241119 - - -

Good morning and welcome to Philadelphia City Council and the Special Committee of Kensington. I now note that the hour has come. Will the Clerk please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance, please indicate that you are present when your name is called.

Madam Chair Lozada.

Present.

Vice- Chairman Jones.

Present.

Councilwoman Ahmad.

Present.

Councilman Driscoll. (No response.)

Councilman Harrity.

Present.

And, Councilman Squilla. (No response.)

This is the public hearing of the Special Committee on Kensington regarding Resolution 241119. Mr. Clerk, would you please read the title of the resolution.

Resolution 18 No. 241119, authorizing the Special Committee on Kensington to conduct hearings regarding the year-end report on the Kensington Community Revival Plan and its effects on the community.

Thank you everyone for being here today. I would like to welcome everyone to this important hearing where we will discuss the five phases of the Kensington Community Revival Plan and hear updates on its progress. On April 11, 2024, Mayor Parker marked her 100th day in office by announcing the Community Kensington Revival Plan, a comprehensive approach to addressing the ongoing challenges in the Kensington community. This plan is structured around five phases, each with a different focus on improving the neighborhood. We'll hear about those different phases as we go through each day, what we've done and where we're headed. Before I continue, I would like to thank Mayor Parker for her efforts and dedication to change. Her commitment to this community and compassion for its residents are evident and the outcome, some of which we heard from yesterday, reflect that dedication. The level of representation and attention to this community is unprecedented for the residents who call the neighborhood home. As a Councilmember or as Councilmembers of the Kensington Caucus who represent this neighborhood, we strive to improve the quality of life for the Kensington residents. At the end of last year, we sent a letter to the Mayor requesting a report on her efforts in Kensington for the 2024 calendar. In the letter, we asked for updates on several critical points, the Wellness Center, which was a priority that we all advocated for during last year's budget process, the processes and the effectiveness of diversion programs in Kensington, efforts to contain open-air fires, policy surrounding feeding permits and needle distribution and the status of the citywide dashboard for treatment beds. We are aware that Mayor Parker is working diligently and swiftly to bring about change in Kensington that residents can see, touch and feel. Since we sent that letter, we have observed several significant actions on these points. However, many questions remain unanswered and today we will continue the conversation. We hope to hear more details about what has been implemented so far, where we currently stand within the five phases and what the timeline looks like for the future progress. It is crucial that our progress leads to meaningful change and that we remain on track for lasting improvements and the stabilization of the Kensington community. I'd like to recognize my colleagues for any opening statements beginning with Vice- Chair Councilmember Curtis Jones.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to take a moment to memorialize and thank you as Chair of this Caucus and the Mayor for being people of your word, staying ten toes down to address the issues that affect Kensington but our entire city. Because until Kensington is safe, then no neighborhood is safe. It is the epicenter of problem, but it's also the blueprint for change. And I just want to thank you for staying resolute in that and the Mayor putting her resources where her mouth is. Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jimmy Harrity.

I'd like to thank you, Chairwoman, for continuing to fight. As somebody who lives in the neighborhood, living there you can see a difference already and we haven't really even begun the fight yet, as they say. But I think that being able to show the residents real change, you know, clean neighborhoods, safe neighborhood, kids can go out and play is what it's about for me. The fact that I live there, I'm there to fight. I already made that decision. So I thank you for what you're doing here and looking forward to getting into this and getting some new information. Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Dr. Nina Ahmad.

Good morning, everyone. I am so pleased to be here. And I want to start by just congratulating my colleagues, particularly Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, for leading this fight, for staying engaged and persistent because this problem didn't happen overnight and we need to all work together to address it. And I also want to applaud my colleague Jimmy Harrity who's here, Councilmember Harrity, Councilmember Squilla and Councilmember Driscoll who were the original Kensington Caucus and then Public Safety Chair Councilmember Curtis Jones and I, the Public Health Committee Chair joined, and I think this gives a very comprehensive way of addressing this. And across the board, we now have the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch all involved in addressing this issue. And I feel this is the first time in the city that we are seeing this level of engagement and coordination. We are definitely wanting to work as well as hold everybody accountable and ask for transparency, but that doesn't mean we don't work together. So I think what we're seeing in the city of Philadelphia and I hope our constituents find some hope in this kind of coordinated effort that we are doing. And like my Chair here, we're going to be ten toes down and not giving up on this. We're going to stay the course and it's going to take a minute and people need to be patient, because as the Mayor says, we're, you know, flying the plane and -- what did she say -- building the plane as we fly it, right. And this is new for us, the City of Philadelphia coming together like this. So I hope this is a new horizon for everybody to appreciate, to have all of you here to testify, to take our questions. We're not an easy bunch. We ask hard questions and that's because our constituents require us to ask those. So I thank you all for being here and I'm very excited that we are seeing a new horizon in the city of Philadelphia.

Thank you. I want to be respectful of people's time. Today is going to be -- we have a lot of amazing people who are going to testify. We have some community residents who are also going to be here. So I don't want people to feel like they're rushed, but I want to keep us moving. And so, I'm going to ask the Clerk to please call the first panel we have to testify this morning on Resolution 241119.

Philadelphia Public Safety Director Adam Geer, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, followed by a presentation from Deputy Commissioner Pedro Rosario and Director Kristin Bray from PhillyStat360. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

And just so the Committee is clear, we're going to hear from each one of the folks on this panel. They'll give their testimony and then we'll hold all questions until the end so that, as I mentioned, we can keep it moving. Thank you so much for being with us this morning, all of those who are here. I don't want to mention any VIPs because this morning I think all of us are VIPs here. And so, welcome to the Special Committee hearing this morning in our chamber. Good morning, everyone. Please state your name for the record and begin with your testimony.

Good morning. Adam Geer, Chief Public Safety Director for the City of Philadelphia. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Good morning. Kevin Bethel, Philadelphia Police Commissioner. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Good morning. Pedro Rosario, Deputy Commissioner of Philadelphia Police Department.

Good morning -- COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I can't roll it like that.

Good morning. Kristin Bray, counsel to Mayor Parker and Director of PhillyStat360.

Welcome.

And I'll lead off if I can, Councilmember, where you all began. And we feel that on this side of the table too as the Administration, the support that's come from City Council, particularly this Caucus, as it relates to our work, the judicial branch, we partnered with them as you said. We are all ten toes down. We feel that. We feel that momentum and support. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and thank you right off the top before I get into my written remarks. Madam Chair and esteemed Committee members, thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding Resolution 241119 regarding the Kensington Community Revival Plan. Mayor Parker has made clear from day 1 that Kensington is second to none in importance. It is my privilege as Chief Public Safety Director to have been tasked with coordinating her Administration's efforts in this area. Immediately after her inauguration last year, Mayor Parker signed her first executive order highlighting conditions in Kensington and mandating a plan from Police Commissioner Bethel, Managing Director Thiel, myself that within 180 days -- 100 days, rather, we would have a plan to address these conditions. Then around the time the 100-day report was completed, the Mayor created two new entities to advance this work: My office, the Office of Public Safety as well as PhillyStat360. The Office of Public Safety is composed of the Office of Safe Neighborhoods, the Office of Criminal Justice, Office of Re-entry Partnerships, Office of the Victim Advocate, Town Watch Integrated Services, Overdose Response Unit and our Grants team, the leadership, all of whom are present today, all of whom understand that their mission also encompasses the mission and task at hand in Kensington. Our mandate is to lead interagency departmental coordination, planning and policy as it relates to public safety. PhillyStat360 was established to serve as the City's central hub for performance management. Its mandate includes tracking key performance indicators and conducting trend analysis across City services. Today I'll briefly highlight our progress to date in Kensington. I'm joined by Deputy Commissioner Rosario, by Police Commissioner Bethel and by Kristin Bray, Director of PhillyStat360. We also have in attendance Deputy Managing Director for Health and Human Services, Crystal Yates-Gale. To begin our core conviction is that the status quo is not acceptable. We will not accept the status quo. We cannot shrug our shoulders. We will not turn a blind eye. We are going to roll up our sleeves and dig in shoulder-to-shoulder with the community, with you all, with anyone who's going to get in there with us and get the job done. We've suffered far too much for too long. The early results are encouraging. In 2024 both homicides and shootings were down by over 40% in Kensington. Preliminary numbers on fatal overdoses show a drop that we expect as big as a third. Although these reductions are promising, we are not satisfied and we will not rest until no Philadelphian's life is cut short by a gun or a needle. Let's talk about what our work has been over the past year. The Office of Public Safety's Office of Safe Neighborhoods deployed three community violence interruption initiatives in Kensington, our GVI team, our CCIP team and our VPP team. We had one instance that I'll just highlight where one of our GVI folks in their present leadership went up into one of the worst corners in Kensington to some young men who are up there and engaged them on that corner. They just walked right up to them and engaged them, do you need help. But one of those people is now a star in the GVI program. He's in Future Track, and we are just incredibly, incredibly proud of him as a person. But that's the type of work they do to complement what the police department's doing. They're up there on the corners trying to engage our young folks and get them the supports and help they need. We also invested deeply in community-led solutions.

6 million in violence prevention grants to community- 5 based Kensington-serving 6 organizations. 5 million in grants to 77 8 organizations for overdose 9 prevention and community 10 resilience. 11 We cannot do this work 12 without our community partners, 13 those that we support as a city and 14 those who we never know their 15 names. We just know they're 16 operating in their communities, 17 doing the good work. 18 The Office of the Victim 19 Advocate whose Director -- Derrick Holmes is here -- launched an initiative, the Crime Scene Cleanup pilot which unfortunately was deployed 59 times. That means that they had to respond to 59 scenes that required biological waste cleanup. The silver linings, our residents and folks up in Kensington did not have to bear that trauma and that responsibility themselves. The City took on that responsibility. Town Watch Integrated Services Office coordinated our Safe Corridors Program for our tremendous and wonderful elementary schools, our five up there in the Kensington area. We also established the interdepartmental Nuisance Fire Task Force that was launched in 2024, focusing on these dangerous fires. This is an effort that was led with the Police Department, Managing Director's Office, we had the Fire Department of course and Merakey. Merakey there in the early morning hours with this task force being available to offer services to the folks when we had to put out those dangerous fires, over 300 of them to date. The City also conducted three ethical and safe encampment resolutions in 2024 and we were able to place dozens of folks into vital services as a result of those. I now want to take a look quickly forward. Just last month we launched the Kensington Neighborhood Wellness Court pilot, which offers fast-track diversion for people arrested for low-level summary offenses. It also importantly provides same-day medical and behavioral health assessments, social services, warrant clearance, judicial hearing. We have a housing specialist for housing and security, treatment intake all in the same day. That's never been done here before in the city of Philadelphia. We also launched the New Kensington Wellness Support Center to house the Wellness Court, the Police-Assisted Diversion program and the Walk-in program for people in need of treatment, housing and other supports. We will continue to expand our popular Wellness Resource Fairs in Kensington up at Rock Ministries. It's tremendous. I urge folks to visit if they can. We have over 50 providers in their space offering treatment, housing assistance, medical care, public benefits. The second half of 2024 alone led to 100 referrals to treatment and 200 referrals to shelter and housing resources. Our partners MDO also have created 500 new beds for shelter and treatment at Philly Home at Girard and Riverview Wellness Village, which will transform the path of many people on the road to recovery. We are clear-eyed, pragmatic and realistic about the challenges ahead. We have more work to do in Kensington, period, but we are committed to this work and to Kensington's promising future for its children, for its vibrant community. To the members of this Committee and to the people of Kensington, please know that this Administration will continue to be relentless in our pursuit of uplifting you. We are not going anywhere. Thank you. You shall now hear testimony from my colleagues in the Police Department and PhillyStat360, and we'll be prepared to answer questions that the Committee may have. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: So good morning. I'm going to be brief in my comments because I have Commissioner Pedro Rosario here who is leading the efforts in Kensington. And so, I'm going to give him an opportunity to do his opening remarks and move forward. I just first want to recognize the Committee. Thank you. Thank you all for your support. I know it's been a challenging process for all of us, but we are moving forward as you indicated. We are seeing success.

Before I begin, recognize that this work is not done by Kevin Bethel. This is done by a team. We cannot get this work done without, first of all, I recognize my men and women on the ground both across the city but most importantly in Kensington, where it's been one of the most challenging endeavors we've ever embarked on. So I'm just extremely proud of the men and women who are across the police department, but in particular those men and women down in Kensington who have done or working every day to bring normalcy back to a community that's been neglected for a long time. I also recognize my members of my team are here. I have Commissioner Cram from Patrol who's behind me; Commissioner Kelly, Special Operations from Narcotics; Commissioner Stanford who's the First Deputy; Commissioner Healy as well as my Executive Director of Communications, Carla-Showell Lee. Again, behind that other parts of my team are not here. I do also want to recognize my team, my colleagues to the right. I've been at this for quite some time, as you all know. But Adam Geer and his team, but particularly Adam has been a true partner. And this is not -- this is a real partnership. We talk each and every day and we are starting to really get our cadence together. But I'm really proud of the support the team has given me and his whole Public Safety team has been phenomenal, and we're going to continue to push forward, the MDO's Office, Office of Homeless Services, DBHIDS, our Sanitation team, and one of my core partners behind me, the Fire Department. I know the Commissioner's here and members of his team. This is -- we are, and I just want Council to know that the Mayor has given us a charge and we are answering that charge as we talk about this intergovernmental approach. So I wanted to take some time to outline that. Before I arrived at this position as Commissioner and going through the interview, the first process, the only person that got me to come back to this job was the Mayor. But most importantly, the Mayor the first thing she asked me was about Kensington. That was her core question. The first question I got asked was what are we doing about Kensington. When I arrived in January, the first action that the Mayor took was the executive order to establish what we're going to do. And we would embark on a plan to put together within 100 days, a five-phase approach, of which Commissioner Rosario will walk you through where we are in those phases. We're probably overlapping all three of them as we align with our partners to be able to effectively have a great strategy moving forward. But we also understand the challenges we face. We also understand that -- as you said, Councilwoman Ahmad -- it's a long game. It is going to take some time and some management of expectations. Because as we've gotten deeper into the space, how entrenched the problem is, you knew that, many of you knew that, but when you get down into the well and really start to understand the complexities. And so, as we move forward in our work we believe we have an effective strategy. I was honored to be able to make, you know, Commissioner Rosario, not just because he was the first Latino ever in the history of the police department to be Commissioner, but most importantly because of his work and his understanding, true understanding of what the community needs and how to effectively do that. So what I will do now, we'll turn it over to him to come over and give his opening statement. And then he'll, as you direct, will walk through the slides and share with you some of the accomplishments we have. Clearly, there continues to be some challenges and there will continue to be. But most importantly, we are proud of the work that we have been able to do. We got on the ground technically in June. We started our core deployment in June. So by definition, we've been down on the ground.

Our Narcotics team went early in March, but June is when we were able to effectively deploy down into that space. And I think we've accomplished a lot in six months, but there's still a lot to do. So I'll switch seats with my friend here. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Good morning, Council. It's a pleasure to be here before you this morning to speak about the work that we've been doing concerning the Kensington Community Revival Plan. This initiative represents a comprehensive, intelligence-driven approach to tackling the open-air drug markets, the violent crime and the quality- of-life issues that have long plagued this area. Through a multi-agency collaboration, including partnerships with state and federal law enforcement, we've made significant progress in disrupting high-level narcotics operations, apprehending violent offenders and providing pathways to recovery for those struggling with addiction. Our officers alongside with community stakeholders have been working tirelessly to restore safety and stability to the neighborhood. We have seen tangible successes. The Commissioner alluded to March is when we essentially put in elements, important elements of our operation by moving in the Narcotics Bureau to start their long-term investigations. And through that, we have been able to remove dangerous drugs and firearms from the street, attacking criminal enterprises and strengthening our efforts, our outreach efforts, to connect individuals with support services. These efforts have led to a reduction in violent crime in targeted zones and an increased cooperation from residents who have long felt abandoned. But beyond the statistics, the true impact of our work is felt in the lives of Kensington's community. Every citizen in this city deserves to live in a neighborhood where they can walk the streets without fear, play outside without the shadow of violence, unburdened by the cycle of crime and addiction. When we talk about revitalization, we are talking about giving our youngest residents a chance at a better life, making sure that their parks are free of needles and that their schools are places for learning instead of dealing with children that have to address trauma. Substantial challenges do remain. We must continue to strike a balance between enforcement and outreach, ensuring that our strategies are not only effective in reducing crime but also in fostering long-term recovery and rehabilitation. The Kensington Community Revival Plan is not just a policing effort. It's a call to action for all of us to commit to a safer, healthier Philadelphia. So with that if Council wishes, I'll begin with the PowerPoint presentation.

Yes, you can proceed. And all members of the Committee have copies of this presentation in their packets for the record. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So the first slide we see here is the current state of crime citywide. We've seen that in 2024 in the city we've had significant reductions in both homicides and shootings. In 2024, we saw a 52% reduction since 2021, which we want to know was our highest peak in the last five years. And we saw a 34% reduction compared to 2023. In 2024, we saw 54% reduction in shooting victims since 2021, again at our highest peak. Now, specifically to Kensington what we're able to see, again taking that trend since 2021 at our highest peak, we saw a 78% reduction in homicides and a 73% reduction in shooting victims. Again, just highlighting some of the successes we've had in 2024. Overall, we saw a 17% reduction in violent crime. When you think about it in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't sound like a lot. But the fact that we were able to drive down homicides and shooting violence was incredibly important for us. Part of the Commissioner's mandate was to stabilize the area. What we saw as a real barrier was in an effort to create a stable bubble for the specialists, right, the social workers, the outreach workers to come in and feel safe and not feel like looking over their shoulder and fear for their lives. So that was one of our main charges for establishing a safe and secure corridor for them to operate. Again, one of the highlights was also 228 firearms that we took off the street. So this next slide is really telling. So our Research department divides the city into two-by-two street blocks. It's a hexagonal map. And it's a heat map where we were able to show in 2022 that area close to K&A led the city in shooting victims. So we saw 50 shooting victims in that little two-by-two block hexagonal location there. And what we saw was for 2024 we drove that down to only 5 shooting victims. And that was a 6 clear display of the efforts that 7 we have been putting in there. I just thought that was an incredibly powerful map when you see it. I mean, the PowerPoint doesn't show it. But when we're looking at on our computer screens, it's actually like a fire engine red when you see it back in 2022. And seeing that, the fact that the shooting victims, the shooting incidents have really been lessened dramatically is tremendous. Councilman Harrity, you have anything you want to --

(Inaudible). DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Okay. So that that hot spot is right at the 800 block of East Allegheny right off of K&A.

(Inaudible). DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Yes, sir, exactly. So obviously, we were operating under shared and interdisciplinary objectives under the Mayor's mandate. We had to identify, establish and resource a cross- functional implementation team for Kensington, establish and maintain a network of community partnerships, secure and stabilize that Kensington corridor that we were just speaking of. Our biggest goals are to remove open-air drug use and then narcotic sales, remove the presence of drug users, eliminate the shooting victims and obviously improve the environmental and economic conditions for businesses to strive in that neighborhood. So the slide that you have here to the right, that is the initial boundary for the Kensington Police District. It's roughly 6 blocks by 12 blocks. It's actually 7 a little smaller than a police 8 service area. But the highlights I 9 want to note here, since March 18th 10 when we were able to move the 11 entire Narcotics Division focused 12 in this area, the amount of 13 successes that we had in this area, 14 in this little 15-by-12 block area, 15 we recovered 87 firearms. We took a combined $8.4 million in fentanyl out of that grid. And what's really telling is that last note, we removed 845,000 doses of fentanyl off the street. Reminding you, this is not the 24th District. This is not a police service area. This is the Kensington mini station footprint, which is a smaller subsection of that. Now, moving outwards the next slide reflects what we did in East Police Division as a whole. Again, understanding that the investigations here were all centered around narcotics enforcement. But again, going back down to the bottom two statistics, $24 million worth of fentanyl removed.

And can I just put for the record, East Division, 24th, 25th, 26th Police Districts? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Yes, ma'am.

And I also want to make note that -- and please correct me if I'm wrong, Deputy Commissioner Rosario -- the 7th Council District represents three of the five highest crime districts in the city; is that still correct? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Yeah. You have portion -- the 7th Councilmanic District has the 24th, the 25th, the 15th, and I believe you go up as far as the 2nd District.

Yes. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: But again, just highlighting $24 million of fentanyl out of East Division. 4 million doses of fentanyl. And obviously, this is all through collaboration with ENI(ph), FBI, all our state and federal law enforcement agency partners. When we made the ask for them to assist us in our initiative here, they were willing partners. So I can't thank them enough for all the work that they've done for us in this area. We also to the right of that slide have a breakdown of the percentages of where we are with buyer/seller arrests. Understanding that -- I know there were some questions why there are so many more buyer arrests than there are sellers. And Director Geer was given a nice breakdown regarding that. Understanding when we're doing investigations on the street, it can never be a one-to-one ratio when we're arresting folks. We have to establish reasonable suspicion and probable cause to prosecute cases. So on average, in our experience we see like a 3-to-1 ratio roughly. So for every 3 buyers, there's always going to be roughly seller. And that's just me really breaking it down elementary, but that's to sort of explain the reason why there's always going to be a higher buyer than there is seller arrest percentage. But the percentages for themselves are a lot, right. We saw in East Division arrests for buyers were up by 98%. Arrests for sellers were up by 58%. Specifically for the two districts, the 24th, the arrests for buyers were up by 112%. The arrests for sellers were up by 60%. Additionally, something that I don't have on my slide here, but just a comparison between 2023 and 2024, and this is something I can provide Council afterwards. We saw sales for 2023, arrests that we made were 289. 2024 we made 450 arrests. So that was a 55% increase. For possession, in 2023 we made 114 arrests. In 2024, we made 269 arrests. That was an increase of 136%. So we were saying as we were moving more resources in that area, we were creating -- we were getting more arrests in that focus area grid. So again, this is all as a result of being able to move our Narcotics Division into this area and really laser-focused and attacking the problems here in the neighborhood. So, Councilwoman, when you were able to pass the City Code for the enforcement of business curfews, a lot of the men and women who work on the street in the field were very excited because they had informed us that a lot of the magnet for bad actors were a lot of these nuisance establishments. So being able to have the law come into place, the legislation come into place and for us to build out the policy was really a helpful tool for us to be able to address quality-of-life issues in and around the Kensington corridor. So for the 2024 year once we established the policy and began enforcement, we were able to issue citations along the 9 highlighted area. A few of the 10 businesses received multiple 11 citations, but the citations were 12 totaled around $12,000 in fines for 13 various businesses. And a few of 14 those businesses we've been able to 15 start our nuisance abatement to be 16 able to attack them and remove them 17 off the corner. But we've really 18 gotten a lot of positive feedback 19 from the police officers on the 20 street telling us this was an 21 important tool on their tool belt 22 to be able to utilize, to kind of 23 really limit the negative activity 24 that we see happening over the midnight shift. Again, this slide is just to kind of highlight or memorialize all the significant steps we took for 2024. What I want to bring to note is that specifically the Commissioner tasked me to make sure not only to come up with a strategy, but to sit down with many of our community partners, civic groups, neighbors, businesses in and around the Kensington footprint.

And I'm proud to say that between January 15th and May 1st sat down 54 times with various groups physically in that area, where it was schools, where it was businesses, where it was churches, and just really from a bottom-up be able to get feedback from them and help them have input in devising our strategy and addressing a lot of the issues here. And I'm proud of the fact the very first meeting I took were with the principals that are within that half a mile of K&A footprint, five core schools that are in that area. And they were very supportive, very excited of the efforts that we were putting in. But it was very important for me making sure that as we were devising the strategy, that we really got the input from all of them to make sure that they were part of the process. One of the big highlights that we had was the conditions that we had on 3100 Kensington. So April 5th, we posted formally the encampment. And then May 8th we executed that encampment resolution. That was a success, right. We've been able to hold that ground ideally, but there's always the biggest issue, the biggest criticism we've gotten from our community members is addressing the displacement that we've had. We recognize that it's been challenging to try to deal with that. And what we've tried to do using the officers on the street and our partners in DBHIDS and social outreach services is to be very fluid in trying to address those conditions. And it's challenging. You know, I'm not going to lie to this body and say that we've done a phenomenal job. I think there's still a lot more work that we need to do to improve that, but we are recognizing some of the strategies that we need to utilize moving forward. And a lot of that is just being able to bring more resources online. And part of that is obviously the preview that we've gotten through the wellness ecosystem, having the Riverview homes come online and having the Wellness Court become operational just recently. I see that as a big advantage for us being able to attack these issues. One of the other coolest issues was the Commissioner gave me an entire class in June, so we were able to augment our police substation there. And what that did is that gave us the ability to operate seven days a week, around- the-clock operations and really provide essential resources in that area that we hadn't had before. So that's actually a cool slide that I really like seeing there. Like any other organization in the nation, we were dealing with staffing issues. Understanding that this area is at the forefront with a lot of the challenges we were facing in public safety, so the fact that we were able to augment the resources, the officers in that mini station really was a big home run for us and it's making a substantial difference. So one of the positives also that we saw was -- I know one of the questions that you had, ma'am, was the responses to 911, how we've been able to improve that. Getting the data was a little challenging to calculate and it has a lot to do with remembering that the officers are footbeats, so they don't have a mobile data terminal, right. So the officers basically have to onsite themselves for everything. Sometimes it's not always expeditiously. But what we did see was for priority and priority 2 incidents the establishment of having the increased resources in the mini station was able to bring down our response time. 25 seconds. 49 seconds in 2024 -- I'm sorry. Minutes, minutes, not seconds. I wish it was seconds. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I had to whisper in his ear on that one. I said if we get there in 4 seconds, that's pretty good. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Apologies for that. So the charging trends by crime types in the Kensington area: So what we saw here for many arrests, the DA's Office accepted the charges as they were brought by the police. I want to bring to note narcotics. So 63% of the time as the police department presented the charges, the DA's Office charged appropriately.

While the results may vary in crime type, in many cases the DA's Office did increase charges. This was most apparent in serious violent crimes and VUFAs. However, the DA's Office also reduced the charges for a substantial percentage of those very same crime types. 30% of violent property and gun crimes were reduced. So this is something that I'm incredibly excited for. We are currently piloting the Drone Program, the Drone First Responder Program in Kensington. And like I've told the residents, this is a gamechanger for us. This is going to give us the ability to improve our response times, right. The drone can respond a lot faster than a foot patrol or car patrol and then be able to provide us realtime updates for critical incidents. And this is absolutely essential for public safety and officers well-beings that are responding to situations. So our strategic goal is to have at least one of these drones in all of our districts throughout the city being able to operate as a 911 responder program. So it would be part of that initial -- I'll give you a for instance. F and Allegheny, person with a gun. The 911 drone would be dispatched to the area expeditiously and be able to provide the officers that are responding to the scene with the realtime updates. But very excited about this program and we're really looking forward to getting this off the ground thoroughly, right. But we're in the ending stages. We're finalizing our policy and completing our training requirements for our pilots. And then the Kensington Fire Task Force. So this was important for me because, as I've alluded to before in other public settings, the community understands the issues that we're dealing with, the unsheltered. They understand the drug issues. They even understand the shootings. But I really get yelled at a lot for this. I do get yelled at a lot for the fires, the warming fires. And unless you live and walk around in this community, you really don't understand what a negative impact it has to the residents and to the businesses. So collaborating with the Fire Department, Sanitation, our social workers through Merakey and our officers, we were able to create a task force and effectively deploy them into the field to proactively go after these warming fires. As Director Geer alluded to, we've put out over 300 fires. And what we've seen, especially recently, I guess ever since the cold spell, we started seeing during the overnight hours an increase of these individuals accepting social services. So that's very good. Whereas in the beginning stages, we were getting zero acceptance referrals during the middle of the night. But recently it's been really increasing where we've been able to really uptick that social component. But it has been a very -- but regardless, it's been very well-received in the community, right. I've gotten just positive feedback, especially from the residents in there. They're really appreciative of the fact that we've been proactive in addressing this issue. So the next slide is just indicative of the partnership that we've joined with SEPTA that provides SEPTA checks. So this is a citywide map. So more than 9800 SEPTA checks have been conducted in and around all across the city. And in the bottom right-hand corner, you can kind of see the Kensington footprint grid. So what the officers do in the mini station is they'll ride the train between certain stations along the El two to three times during their tour. The sergeant will assign a team of officers to go and ride up on the train, especially during our high-volume hours. So the morning rush, the afternoon rush, both with school dismissal, and the ending of the normal work day we'll have uniform KPD officers riding the El train as a sort of support for the SEPTA rail system.

So our 2025 goals will be to deepen our focus on executing the executive orders under Mandate 3 with regarding to all of our disciplinary objectives, to continue to drive down violent crime in Kensington, matching or surpassing the current trajectory, to continue to reset the legal norms and drive the messaging that Kensington is not the exception for open-air narcotics sales or usage, to increase the number of persons who accept services to overcome being unhoused, reducing the yearly average of the unhoused population in Kensington by at least 50 percent. Now, that's aspirational but I really think -- Councilwoman Ahmad, you alluded to this. The fact that we're all moving in the in the right direction right now is very essential to the success of our operations and I think we can achieve these goals. And obviously, to continue to utilize City legislation to address our pop-up encampments as they arise before they require full resolutions. That's important. And that really is the men and women on the ground being fluid to be able to respond to neighborhood complaints so that way we can address them before they become full-blown encampments. And with that, that concludes my presentation.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Committee. It is my honor to speak today on the launch of the Kensington Community Revival Plan Dashboard. And this --

Please state your name.

Yes, ma'am. It's Kristin Bray. I'm chief counsel to Mayor Parker and the Director of PhillyStat360. Again, it is my honor to speak on the launch of the Kensington Community Revival Plan Dashboard, an essential initiative aimed at using data-driven strategies to transform Kensington. At the heart of this effort is Mayor Parker's continued commitment to providing a government that is transparent, accountable and tangible, one that Philadelphians can truly see, touch and feel. At PhillyStat360, we work to make the Mayor's bold vision a reality by providing the public with clear, accessible data that tracks the progress of the City's efforts on many different data points, including those relevant to Kensington. Today I'm excited to formally introduce to City Council the Kensington Community Revival Dashboard, a new tool that was launched yesterday, and that puts key data directly in the hands of Philadelphians. The dashboard focuses on several vital areas of community impact, including public safety, health and wellness, quality of life, neighborhood demographics and economic opportunity. It is a transparent and accessible way for the Philadelphia community to see how resources are being allocated and how the Parker administration is progressing in its efforts to revitalize the neighborhood known as Kensington. The dashboard has a wealth of data available on it, but I wanted to briefly highlight some of the key features that are available on the dashboard. So first, we move into a map. And the geography of what is Kensington is very important. If you click on the left, we start with the police districts along with the Kensington Police District overlapping the 24th, 25th and 26th Districts. But there's many different ways that we can talk about the geography of Kensington. For example, we have here the various Council Districts that overlap in the geographic boundaries. And there's a myriad of other ways that we can talk about the actual geography of what is happening in the neighborhood that people talk about as Kensington. In addition to the data on the geography, we talk about public safety and there's a couple of key highlights. As Deputy Commissioner Rosario talked about, we have the increase in police staffing of 195%. We can also compare data about how crime is occurring in 2023 versus 2024 using this heat map that shows the comparison between the two years and the geographic placement of that crime. If we continue, we can also see measurements of violent crime versus property crime. The orange lines representing where those levels were in 2023 and the blue bars representing where those levels were in 2024. And by hovering over any of those bars, as my business agent Anos -- I'm sorry, Alfredo Pratico is doing, you can see the numbers for each one of those months. We continue down, we can look at narcotics arrest again. We can compare where we're making buyers arrest versus where we are making sellers arrest. And we have numbers on the bar chart next to this, again with numbers for each of the arrests by month. As we continue through, we can talk about Kensington shootings and we can compare 2023 to 2024. As we can see, there's been a significant reduction in the Kensington Police District from 2023 which featured 49 shootings to 2024 where there were only 18 shootings. 19 We also have data on the 20 Fire Department's responses through 21 EMS, comparing again 2022, 2023 and 22 2024. In addition, we have the number of structure fires versus rubbish fires compared year-overyear. You heard mention of the Nuisance Fire Task Force. This map shows the activities of the Nuisance Fire Task Force as they go through the Kensington Police District. And as it moves through time, you'll see how those fires light up on the map and how we address that.

If we continue on, and you'll see there's a wealth of data talking about the different activities that we're doing within the area from both the Fire Department, the Police Department, the Prisons Department as well as other City departments. We have information on a number of people incarcerated, both from the 24th and 25th Police Districts versus Philadelphia overall, and then recidivism rates from one year, three years and five years. We have information about the Office of Public Safety's initiatives throughout the community, how we're using Police- Assisted Diversion to assist people. We have information about safe corridors around various schools in the community. We have information about the health and wellness ecosystem that is being managed by the Managing Director's Office. We also have information about the number of beds available throughout the City's behavioral health system. And in addition to that, the number of beds throughout the City's shelter system, what we have in total, what is occupied and what is available. We have the number of long-term housing placements. We have information on the encampment resolutions, and then we move into the quality-of-life data. Each of these dots on the map, in addition to the amount of trash moves, talks about the different cleanups that the City of Philadelphia has performed throughout 2024, each stop representing and each color representing a different activity by the City of Philadelphia. We know that inlet inspections and cleanings were important to the community so we wanted to make sure that we kept this data. We also have the number of needles collected by the Community Life Improvement Plan and a map demonstrating where those needles were picked up and the density of those pickup of needles throughout the community. We have the number of dangerous buildings that L&I both demolished and cleaned and sealed, and we compare them both in the Kensington initiative area, which is the Kensington Police District, to the overall zip code of 19134, the orange dots representing the dangerous buildings demolished and the blue dots representing the buildings that L&I cleaned and sealed over the past year. We also have information about Licenses and Inspections programmatic inspections. These would be things like junkyard inspections that they're engaging in, business inspections that they're engaging in and a wealth of other activities that L&I is engaging in. We have information about the LED streetlight conversions, and you'll notice that some of the dots on this map are a little bit brighter blue. That represents how blue the LED street lamp is in that community, whereas lighter blue is maybe a less bright light, but they're all the LED streetlights in addition to the older lights. We have information on the nuisance enforcement that has occurred through Kensington. We have information on the number of 311 requests that have been placed. And again, if we go to the right- hand corner and you click on the information there, you can see that each dot represents a different activity or different call for service in 311. We have information on the number of animals that were taken in by ACCT or the number of animals adopted through the 19134 zip code. Importantly, we have information about demographics. We need to know who is living in the community and what their challenges are to appropriately address and target services. And here we have a comparison of Kensington again, using the 19134 zip code to the average in Philadelphia, talking about household rates, poverty, owner-occupancy and disability rate. Finally, we move into economic opportunity and the different programs that Commerce is running in that program, and we have a map for that as well. This talks about the program awards to the businesses because businesses are important of a thriving community and neighborhood. We also have the amount of opioid settlement spending that has taken place thus far.

The amount of grants given out in the community, the amount of community resources such as the libraries in that community, which are a vital place for people in the community, children and adults to go get services. We have information about the parks and playstreets in the community. Again, a vibrant community has parks that community members can use. And then finally, we have information about the debt within the 19134 zip code, including the Water Debt Sequestration program, the delinquent taxes and fees throughout the community, the amount of sheriff's sales and information about the Raise Your Hand Water Shut-off Exemption program. We believe this dashboard is user-friendly and embodies accessibility features such as having the ability to translate the dashboard into multiple languages, and we'll demonstrate that. You can choose any language that you would like to see this dashboard in and it should translate. This allows Philadelphians to explore the City's efforts and track progress no matter what their tongue is. We believe that the dashboard is designed to offer a comprehensive and transparent view of how the Parker administration is making a difference in Kensington. I want to say that I did not build this dashboard alone, as such in addition to our great partners in the Administration here at this table with me and the Office of Public Safety and the Police Department. I'd like to take a moment to thank the incredible team that helped us build this. That includes our tech whizzes Henry Bernberg and Jenna Lobasa, our number-crunching business analysts Andonie Barika, Shravan Kulkarni, Kevin Martinez and Alfredo Practico, and our Associate Directors Noelle Foizen and Melvin Cariscio and finally, my First Deputy Maggie White. Together their hard work and dedication ensure that this tool is accessible and effective for the public. I truly commend them for all they have done and look forward to how they continue to use their skills to use data to empower transparency. Looking Forward, PhillyStat360 will remain focused on accountability and transparency. The Kensington Community Revival Dashboard will continue to evolve and provide current data and allow the public and City Council to track the Parker administration's progress. We look forward to using the data to make sure that we are on track or if we are not on track, working together to figure out why and developing real solutions for both Kensington and the city as a whole. We encourage City Council and Philadelphians to explore this dashboard more thoroughly, ask questions and offer feedback. We find your feedback and input essential to ensuring that we are meeting the community's needs and reporting on what is important to them as they live and work in the Kensington community every day. I greatly appreciate your time today and providing me with the opportunity to share this important new data tool. My team and I look forward to continuing this important work together with our partners in the Administration, in City Council and in the community. Thank you.

Let me begin saying thank you. Thank you for all of the work that you all have done. Thank you for your consistency and continuing to prioritize the work that Mayor Parker said she would commit to on day 1. These numbers are impressive, right. I agree with all of you in that we still have a lot of work to do. My colleague here could not have said it better. And that is, it doesn't matter how much work we do if the people that live in that community still don't feel safe, right, if they can't see, feel and touch the work that is being done. But I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the fact that we all continue to show up. We all continue to prioritize Ground Zero for everything that is happening in the city of Philadelphia, in the Kensington community. We can see some of the fruits of our labor. But as I mentioned, we have a long way to go. The fact that 845,208 doses of fentanyl were recovered in that community is crazy to me. How much is still on the ground and how do we tackle this. This just shows how much that community has to deal with on a daily basis, right. And so, I want to shout out the police department. And people say, Councilwoman, she's always going to side with the police. I'm okay with what people say because I'm grateful for the work that is being done. I think that if you look at all of this, it's hard for you to ignore the fact that we depend on the police department to do a lot of this work, right. We need to respond to mental health, we got to call 911, police got to respond. We need to remove somebody from somewhere, we need to call 911. We need to break down an encampment, we need to call 911. We need to respond to opening narcotics trade, we need to call 911. We need to respond to sex work, we need to -- so I'm grateful for the men and women. Not you all that wear the beautiful gold, you know, all of the decorations. I am grateful -- I love all of you. You all know that I do. But I am extremely grateful for the men and women in those blue shirts that put their uniforms on every day and that they choose to be in the Kensington community where everybody wants to run away and run the other way and please put me in a cushion space where I can work my 8- 9-, 12-, 14-hour shifts, put me over there because I don't have to deal with that. It says a lot about the men and women that are serving in that community. And so, I want to say thank you to them. I want the people that do the outreach work every day, the people that are connecting people to services every day in this new way, right, in this new way, because for a long time they didn't have to do a whole lot of effort. They didn't have to put in a lot of work because there were thousands of people laying around so they could go do engagement right there. But the new way that this system is set up requires them to really go find people and really do the outreach work, do the connection. I've heard many times people had to go find somebody and figure out where they went today. And so, kudos to the outreach workers that continue to show up every day to do the work to ensure that not just the -- that the person that needs the services is connected to those services but that community also gets the much deserved relief that they should have access to, right. So I want to make sure that I say that. But this also brings about a lot of questions. There was a press conference yesterday. We talked about all of these great numbers. Community residents walked away and said, number one, how are you identifying Kensington? What do you consider Kensington? Are we talking about Kensington in the same language, right? Does the Office of Homeless Services, does the Police Department, does everybody consider the grid the same grid, right? Are these numbers reflective of the -- are they all reporting in the same way? Beds, we talk about beds all the time, right.

Are we able to see beds -- and I'm going to ask all these questions at one time and then whoever is the best person to respond to it can respond because I have a million of them in my head and I can't sort them all out right now. But are we seeing beds? You know, I'm going on this dashboard. Am I seeing these beds in realtime? We're starting the day with 500 beds -- and I know that that's a lot -- but we're starting the day with 500 beds. If I'm an outreach worker, are these beds -- as they're being assigned, are they being removed from PhillyStat? How do we respond to, okay, in May you guys did an encampment and while we talk about it as a success, everybody around us says that we just pushed people out into the neighborhood, right. And that's obvious. We see some of that. But I want you all on the record, and I've had individual conversations with different people who have been able to respond to me, but I want to get this on the record. How do we respond to community residents when they say, yeah, you moved them off of the 3100, 3200 block of Kensington Avenue but now they're on Ruth Street, now they're on Clearfield Street, now they're on Clementine Street, how do we respond to that and to those community residents that are now feeling some of this pressure? And then I'll pass it on to my colleagues here. After all of this work that you have done, we're moving into warmer weather, and we saw that yesterday, right. How do we continue to remain in control of those blocks that we've done all of this work over the last months, 7 right? Because if yesterday was a 8 reflection of what could 9 potentially happen, then I'm 10 scared, right. 11 So how do we do that? 12 How do we respond to making sure that all of this work wasn't just a continued vicious cycle and that is going to come back? We talk all the time about, okay, we're in the winter, we're going to do all this stuff and we're going to prepare. How are we preparing? If you could just lay all of that out for me, that would be great. And then I'll open it up to my colleagues for questions.

Thank you very much, Councilmember. With respect to your question, and we did talk about this yesterday at the press conference, this issue of displacement, we are very understanding of this. When we're up in the community driving around and we're up there, we see the displacement. We hear about the displacement. And so, we are thinking through that challenge and we're working through that challenge currently. Thanks to the police department, as you say, are very responsive to those requests when they come in. So the community meetings that we've been to, the police department, their leadership, my folks who are there in those meetings as well make it very clear that if there's any displacement that neighbors are seeing, to please call 911. The Deputy Commissioner and his team, I know because I'm on a lot of those texts and exchanges, are very responsive to that. Now, that is not a long- term fix, right. Those are short- term fixes as we're working through this. We did resolve that encampment. The nature of some of the unsheltered substance use disorder, dual diagnosis issues that we're seeing, it has changed. It is no longer these larger, very easily identifiable encampments. There is a lot of movement there. They will be in one area on one day and then in another area another day and then, as you say, going into the communities. One of the mid- to long- term and hopefully shorter term solutions that we'll bringing to the table is Neighborhood Wellness Court. This will allow us to engage folks who are engaged in open-use drug use wherever they are and bring them to a place, our new Kensington and Wellness Support Center that is built from the ground up with Kurt August and his team and Bingela Manos and Joe Sheris, all the other folks involved with that, Merakey. It's going to be positioned to take in folks who are in the throes of substance use disorder and give them some real treatment options, some real service options and have that be an accountability on day 1. So we feel like that will help. We are continuing to pilot that program. We're only in the fourth week of that pilot program. Understanding, as you say, that the weather is getting warmer, this is a significant priority for us. But just circling back, that is always top of mind of us, the issue of displacement, not only in Kensington but citywide. And citywide, we have similarly had a very responsive approach understanding that we are also building short-, mid- and long term solutions to that. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Council, I'll speak very quickly to I know there's always a tendency to expand. You know that you're not covering enough area, but one of the things, part of our strategy is being very strategic and really staying focused on those core areas that we have our highest level of violence in the case of Kensington. So when you hear the Commissioner talk about -- Commissioner Rosario say it was only in 2022 we had 50 shootings and today we have 7, there's a tendency to expand and expand. But the more you expand, you start to dilute the capacity to control what you can control. And so, there's always displacement. We find that in many of the areas we get displacement and we'll work through that. But we're open to have those conversations. But just being mindful that this area sits between three patrol districts. So it's not as if this entity sits and then the border of it is not patrolled. As you already know, the 25th, the 24th and the 26th Districts border all of that. And so, we feel we have a strong plan. We're open as you talk to community members that maybe want us to expand a block or because they feel like there maybe -- but we really, really try to stay focused in our core strategy both citywide. This is part of a citywide deployment. We don't win the city without winning Kensington. We don't win.

I mean, because of just the sheer number we look at 50 homicides representing such a large number or -- I mean not homicides, but shootings, et cetera, overall, in East Division overall. And so, we have a large deployment down there. We think we have the ability to expand and contract and be able to work around those borders to address those. But there's often that tendency -- and sometimes it's a good thing. Particularly when people see the level of activity happening, we want that as well. But we do at some point have to be very conscious that the more we expand, the more we expand the beat, the less we're able to cover because of that.

Councilmember, we have different data from different departments on this dashboard and different departments capture their data differently. Police Department has been using data for a very long time with their CompStat program and can track information as small as, I believe, five-minute increments -- COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Four-and-a-half.

Four- and-a-half I've been told. Other departments are not quite as advanced with the data as the police department is at this time. PhillyStat360 is working closely to get as realtime data as we can from each of the departments that is available. We're also working very closely to make sure that when we're talking about that definition of Kensington, which is why we started with that map first, what is Kensington, having that shared definition, that we're all talking about the same locations and making sure that we're measuring apples to apples. And we have other maps that we're looking at, not just in what is happening in the Kensington Police District, but what does it look like when you map out how far a citizen can walk from 5 minutes out from the center of the Kensington Police District versus 10 minutes, because that's very important when we're talking about issues like displacement, that we're making sure we're measuring and keeping track of where the activity is moving over time so that we are as responsive as we can be as an administration. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Council, just one final thing I do want to -- you discussed the issue around the summer surge or the spring surge. I think we're better positioned this year. We've already started those conversations around what that looks like. We know we have a dip in the winter. But as you recall, as you know last year we only had 39 officers assigned and then we're now up to 115. We are going to continue to have our deployment throughout. And so, as we rotate into the warmer months we're going to have a much larger police presence down there than historically has occurred with the hope that that also serves as a deterrence of those who come into the area because of the warmer months. They're going to come in to see something much different than they saw when they left. And we hope that that continued pressure will be able to start to reduce those numbers successfully.

How has the increase in police presence been received by community residents, right? We've received mixed messages, but you all are on the ground, the officers are on the ground. How has the community in that footprint received officers? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Well, ma'am, you go to a lot of the same meetings I do and we both respond to the same constituent base. Incredibly positive. Rarely do I get anything negative from the community about the increase in police. And a lot of that has to do with the officers that were put in there. I'd like to note the supervisors that are leading that effort there, from the inspector to the lieutenant and the sergeants, they're all volunteers. They're all people that came up to us and said, we want to be part of this and we want to be part of the solution and work in this community that we care about so much. So that makes my job a lot easier knowing that I have folks that are vested in what we need to do long- term and looking out for the best interest of the community. But it's been incredibly well-received.

Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones. Then Councilmember Harrity and Councilmember Ahmad.

Thank you, Chairwoman. First, I want to echo my Chairwoman's compliments to say thank you. Four years ago this data did not exist in a codified way. Data becomes information. Information translates into policy. If there is no data, you can't get to where we are today. So I thank you for that. I want to thank Ms. Harris, Sincere Harris. We were walking in and I said, is there a per chart process, evaluation review chart that shows when someone is contacted either from law enforcement or voluntarily or through one of the agencies, what happens step-by-step, outcomes? Whether it is through a wellness environment, whether it is through court-stipulated, what happens? What are the possible steps that can occur? And when we build out that chart -- I don't expect it today -- but I'm looking at you because you're the chart person, right, to come up with how long did it take to place that person in a bed? How much does that cost? And those kinds of pieces of information help us formulate a better strategy. In addition, as we built this plane, as the Mayor talks about, one of the things that I want to know is are the other exit ramps ready to receive what you are sending them? I am interested in the treatment of individuals that wind up on State Road. How many of them do we lose to a sudden detox? What can we do better to make that exit ramp safer for them? We in this Council have heard people in tears talking about their family members that they lost to our efforts to change the Kensington dynamic. So as we build this plane, we need to make sure there's safe exit ramps into recovery, into long-term housing. And so, we need a chart that kind of linearly shows us the way, if we can do that. My issue obviously comes back to public safety. So my question would be in this process how are we doing with quality-of- life crimes on corridors? My colleague Jimmy Harris is pushing a treatment for commercial businesses that gives them a grant. Because I remember going to Conwell and there was a row of businesses with the iron gates down because they could no longer operate in that environment. So I guess what I'm asking is, how are we doing on that front when we examine individuals that will come knock on Jimmy's door and say, what kind of detergents do you need, I'm going to go over and fill your order by shoplifting. How are we doing in that quality-of-life issue on commercial corridors? And the reason I care about this, other than supporting you, is that there's a dirty little secret that what happens in Kensington does not stay in Kensington. I have tents that are popping up in my District, on Parkside Avenue and other places that I have to be mindful of because it does migrate. So I want to get a sense of how we're doing on the commercial corridors, how we're doing with those quality-of crimes, how we are referring people and giving them that option? And I want to come to the alternate courts. I know the paint is dry by now, right, because we would like to take a trip up there to see how we're doing.

Yes.

So those are my questions. Feel free to respond.

Thank you, Councilmember. So the Office of Clean and Green, our Commerce Department, they have been operating up in Kensington. If I could just give you a few numbers. We completely agree with the notion that addressing quality-of-life crimes, including cleaning, routine cleaning, and I would say lighting, all of these things affect public safety in measurable ways. But just to give you some numbers here: 450 abandoned vehicles removed; 17,000 properties and fixtures cleaned of graffiti with our incredible CLIP; 166 properties maintained; 311 nuisance properties addressed; 810 property and block cleanups; 2 short dumps removed; and over 8000 syringes removed. And I know that they're moving towards a more aggressive syringe removal process. Our Commerce Department continues to operate and support businesses up there through PHL Taking Care of Business, Community Development Corporations. One of the things they did and I think this is -- I love public safety- related things like this. They're giving money to have businesses get security cameras. That I think is important, right, to get to have the ability to support their businesses and get security cameras. If you've seen the LED lights, the combination of the light that that casts in addition to increased security cameras is going to mean better evidence for our law enforcement to be able to make arrests on more serious crimes, right, and also monitor what's happening, and then more successful convictions because that's better evidence. So all of these things, and that's the beauty about this interagency work and being able to all be on the same page with our partners, is that we can make these investments and they are related to each other and we will continue to see hopefully improvements in this area. But to your point, we will continue to focus on cleaning and greening and know that that has an impact on public safety as we move forward.

How many arrests for shoplifting have we arrested? And we'll ask later how many have been referred to some type of treatment as an alternative? And up the food chain have those arrests of users probably resulted in arrest of dealers resulted in arrest of big fish? How are we doing that?

Councilmember, I will have those numbers for you tomorrow. I know we're going to be back here tomorrow talking about some of our diversionary programs. I think the PAD retail numbers we will have. We can possibly have them by the end of this hearing, but we will have those retail theft numbers for you tomorrow, Councilmember, as it relates to how they're getting into the process and whether we're also getting convictions on dealers based upon those arrests.

If you cannot do it today, please provide it to the Chair. She will distribute it to members.

Will do. Thank you, Councilmember.

Chair recognizes Councilmember Harrity.

Thank you, Chairwoman. Again, just to echo my colleagues, Deputy Commissioner Rosario, you and your guys have been doing a bang-up job. I live on one of the worst corridors in the city for open-air drugs and you guys got them guys shook, you know what I mean. We were actually -- I always called the ones on the top of my corner a novice, because the ones around the corner have been established for a long, long time, and you guys were actually able to clean my corner off. Hilton Street where they had 20 or 30 of them standing out there every day, if you see two hiding in the alley, you know what I mean, and the same thing on Hilton. Hilton is a little bit different, but you guys have really made a difference. And it's a shame. You guys know one of the last murders of the year actually happened right outside my house. Didn't get much press coverage. You would think that somebody's killed outside of a Councilperson's home where his steps are part of the crime scene you would get a little bit more interest. But the sad fact is that if they're not multiple homicides in my neighborhood, it really doesn't get reported on. And when that incident happened, I was upset because we had gone through like three, four months without a shooting over there, which anybody that knows that area knows that you see in the two block area we had 50. When we had the 596 within that 24th, 25th and 26th police district, 198 of the murders were from that area. So there's no 3 question that there's a difference. I'm hoping you guys keep it together for the summer when we get started with that. It's always a lot to deal with. But I have faith that between you guys and the Mayor and public safety and all the workers out there, outreach workers, that we're going to get this done. My actual question is though about the opioid settlement money. I know that a lot of that money we got the last time was put into Kensington to help with what's going on with the different programs, different other issues. Will that money stay going to Kensington in the next round? Will we have a continued finance of programs that are going on in that area? And along with that, what will we be doing to build more affordable housing in Kensington and how will we maintain an upkeep to housing in Kensington? The sad fact is we have a lot of vacant lots and we need people. We need housing. It's always a proven fact that if you have more people on a block, crime actually drops because more people have an interest in reporting that crime. So part of the problem with Hilton and Madison is the fact that they have so many vacant lots, lots of places for them to hide their stuff and all that. So basically I just want to know are we going to continue to put that opioid settlement money where it belongs? And are we -- I know the Mayor is thinking about housing, her plan of 30,000 affordable units and I'm excited about that. Let's build. When can we see some of that coming to Kensington? And then finally, how will people be referred to Riverview? And can you walk us through that process a little bit? So, one, opioid settlement; two, housing; three, Riverview.

Thank you, Councilmember. Regarding your first question, the Mayor as we all know is committed to, as you all started, being ten toes down on Kensington, and that includes utilizing the opioid settlement funds in the most effective way. We are currently, as we speak, and have been in the process of examining how we're going to be utilizing those opioid settlement funds. We're also in the middle of budget season and those two things are tied. We want to be intentional about understanding the monies that we're going to be having in our budget request, the monies that are going to be available through our opioid settlement fund money, making sure that nothing is duplicative, making sure that it's aligned. We're in the middle of that process, Councilmember. And frankly, we will have more to report on that later. Rest assured however that the opioid settlement fund money is meant to address, right, what we're seeing, and that is exemplified in Kensington. And as we've said earlier today, what starts in Kensington, right, is just citywide impact and we know that. In order for us to be successful everywhere, we must be successful there. And I hope that answers your question. We will have more on the specifics of the opioid settlement plan money. We just do not have that for you today.

And just a little follow-up, we did win part of the appeal, right --

Yes.

-- to be able to use that money for fixing up some of the housing that has been affected. I mean, it affects everything in that neighborhood. When you have an abandoned house and people are going in and out and in and out and in and out and you get a senior citizen living next door, and then we turn around and we condemn that house, we knock it down, and now the poor senior citizens' walls are in bad shape. I'm just trying to find out that, you know, I was happy to see that we were able to save that part of it and that the money will go there. And then the other two questions, housing and then Riverview.

So we had our Home Repair program, Councilmember, I think that might be the one you're alluding to. That was the $2 million. There were 400 applications. 138 houses were 100% complete. Houses near completion were 45. In our plan that we released yesterday, and I think we ran out of copies, we go into further detail with housing. We'll make sure that we send that over to you. I do not believe we have someone from our housing here to address your specific question. So if we can supplement that Councilmember, but we do have that included in our plan.

I appreciate that. And then finally, just walk me through how people will be referred to Riverside. Show me a little bit of the process of how that works.

Sure. We'll call someone up to speak for Riverview.

May I step back?

No, stay right there. (Laughter.)

Good morning, Councilmembers. My name is Crystal Yates-Gale. I'm Deputy Managing Director of Health and Human Services. With me I have Deputy Commissioner Amanda David from the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services. I'd like to take a moment to just scan the room for Ms. Isabel McDevitt. She is the Director of Community Wellness and Recovery. Okay. She's not here. We can answer the question on how people are referred to Riverview Wellness Village. Amanda.

Hi. I'm Amanda David. So individuals are referred to the Riverview Wellness Village from treatment programs, from bed-based treatment programs, and using the DBHIDS recovery house referral form. We can send you that link, make sure you have it. So the individual -- the treatment programs all utilize this recovery house referral pretty regularly. And so, this is a common way that individuals get connected to recovery house. So individuals can and treatment programs can write on the referral that they would request the Riverview Home as where the individual would like to go.

And I'd like to add, as you all know having visited, that the Riverview Wellness Village is an innovative model. It's not the standard recovery housing that we have here in Philadelphia. We want people to have the opportunity to stay for up to one year so that they can get closer to full and sustainable recovery. Included in that model, we have a medical care provider that so far has seen every resident that is there. We do have residents there now. We try very hard to respect privacy so we don't give individual numbers, but please know you've all been there, that we're very close to filling up one of the housing wings. We've started with male population in one wing. We will soon expand to female population. Almost every resident has received a very thorough medical exam from the Black Doctors Consortium. Our substance use provider and recovery house provider is Merakey. They are very involved in case management for our residents there, and we will soon be adding job opportunities and employment education services. You've been to the campus and seen how beautiful it is. You've mentioned the nice weather coming up. I can't wait to see yoga on the front deck --

Yeah.

-- but we are ready to fill Riverview Wellness Village and to add more.

So is there like a roundabout number of how many are there now?

And I want to put for the record that we're not asking for specific information. I think that it's important for the general public to understand that there was money budgeted for this space. I think you should celebrate that we were able to bring this space up to par in record time, right. And people ask on a consistent basis are there people being referred there because people have said, I don't know the process or I want people -- or my loved one wants to be referred there but there's been no contact. They've been referred. We don't know. So what do we say? What does the Administration say? What does this Special Committee say to people that say, yeah, they opened it but the beds are still empty. So tell us. We said there's 300 available beds. How many beds are filled and how many referrals have you all received that are under consideration?

I will ask Amanda to talk to the number of referrals, but what I can say to respect privacy each wing holds 44 beds. And one wing is almost full, I think if I can say that. One of the practices that we found to be successful is to bring residents in slowly. We try to do no more than three to five at a time so that that gives people the opportunity to become acclimated not only to the facility but to each other. So we can't fill 300 beds at one time, but we will be filling 300 beds using best practices. And then for the number of referrals, I'll turn it back to Amanda David.

We have at least 37 referrals that have gone over to Merakey for review and for interviewing. And so, that's what we have allocated to them now. What I can do is I'll go back and I will let you guys know how many we have in total for Riverview at this point.

And --

And I'll also add -- I'm sorry, sir. I'll add to that. We also plan to reach out to all of our treatment facilities. We talked to the leadership. You know how, Councilmember Lozada, you said the gold wearing, right. So we've talked to the leadership and they've seen Riverview. We want to have conversations with the people that are on the ground at the treatment facility so that they also have seen and know to start referring people there. Sir?

Yeah. I just want to say that 44 is great. I'm good with that number because I know that we've just opened this place, and you're talking about before people get there I'm hoping they're going through at least 30-to-90 days of other treatment before they get there. So I think the fact that within a couple of months you guys already have 44 beds filled is great. I think we could do better. But as always, you know that's a thing. But I can also attest to it is not hard to help somebody get into Riverview. I've already made calls for people that I know are about to get out that are about to finish their 90 days and they were very accommodating in going out and outreaching to the people to see if they're right for that location. So thank you for the work you're doing and I look forward to bigger numbers.

Thank you.

I want to say for the record and just to make sure that my colleague is clear, you have 44 beds per wing --

Yes.

And you didn't say the number of those 44 which are filled, correct?

Which are close to being filled is what I said. I'm trying to really be respectful of people's privacy.

And I think we understand that we need to be respectful of -- I mean, I think all of us are clear about HIPAA. We weren't asking for details for the record. We're asking for data, just numbers, right? I think numbers matter. We've seen how numbers matter, right. And so, again we want to be able to respond to our constituency and say, yes, each wing holds 44 and at the moment we have 30,000 referrals and --

We have 37 referrals and --

How many?

37 referrals.

37 referrals.

And the majority of those referrals have been placed.

Okay.

Those are males, males only?

Those are males, right. Because of the recovery house model, the one wing right now is males and then we will soon be expanding to another wing to include females.

What's the time frame for that because that's part of the problem. Females always end up on the short end of this kind of stuff, especially when it comes to, you know, I'm doing some restorative justice stuff and I've been looking into it. And what happens is women end up doing most of their sentence because there is no place to put them after that, whether it's treatment or actual halfway housing. So I'd love to see the women get started as soon as possible.

We will be getting started as soon as possible, sir.

I just want to follow up to one of the questions that Councilmember Harrity asked before Councilwoman Nina Ahmad starts her line of questioning. Will we receive a report of the opioid settlement money that were distributed in Round and I'm assuming or Round 2 how was it used? And are we able to measure the success of that? And is there going to be a process of how that money is going to be dispersed in Round 3? You know, as a city we do a very poor job at oversight, right. If money is not being used appropriately, how do we re-appropriate it? And so, is there going to be a process moving forward for this particular path of money? Was there a process for that in the past?

I will say that we are all still working on that with the Managing Director's Office, the Office of Public Safety, have both been taking part in utilizing those funds working together to make sure we have a streamlined usage and a streamlined reporting of those funds.

Thank you. And then, Deputy Commissioner Rosario, the number of doses that were recovered is astounding for me. How many arrests for sales have been made? And how do we recover this significant amount of doses off the street? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So for --

And of those arrests, how many convictions that we have? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So convictions are difficult because those arrests last year are -- the bulk of them are still going through the system. So they haven't been finalized yet. With regards to arrests for the -- are you saying for the specific Kensington grid or for the overall division?

So these doses were recovered from the Kensington -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So I provided --

As a result of this, how many arrests were made? How many people are we holding accountable for these doses? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So for 2024 specifically in the Kensington grid, there were 1108 arrests.

How many? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: 1108 arrests. 575 were buyers. 511 were sellers. And again, this is Kensington grid- specific since we began our narcotics initiative in March.

And of those, you're saying some of them are still in the process? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: Yes, ma'am.

Do we know how many of these are in the process? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: I could get back to you. But ordinarily, some of the pretrial motions, the court process, can be extensive sometimes. So normally, they can go anywhere from months to 2 years before they're remedied. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I hear you -- I just want to make sure, Councilwoman, I worked in narcotics for almost years and 7 will take you back several decades 8 ago, right. I mean, that area has 9 been one of the epicenters, one of 10 the most highly sought-out drug 11 areas on the East Coast. 12 Prior to fentanyl, 13 heroin as you know was the biggest 14 seller in that era. And because of 15 its location to the 95 corridor, it has and continues to be a very easy place for individuals to come along the entire Eastern Seaboard to come into East Division coming off of 95 corridor. And so, I think we're going to always be in this, as we try to reduce the open-air market and the unsheltered, but we are going to be dealing with the undercurrent of corners that are multi-million dollar earners that has been woven into that space for quite some time. And I know I'm talking to you, and you know that. And so, we have to also understand the complexities. There's two things going on. Yes, we're dealing with the open-air. We took one of the most highly sought-out drug areas -- at one point we had the highest level and purest heroin in America here in Philadelphia. And then there was a shift to the fentanyl and Tranq and what we see today. But as we start to peel that back and start to work hard to stabilize the community, we're going to still be fighting that battle around the drug element in that area, one, because of just its location. I've done multi-million dollar drug corners down in that area. You take one off and another one comes back. If Commissioner Kelly was to come up here and testify, many of those corners are very structured. Their suppliers, as he talked about yesterday, are in other parts of the city where they bring their supplies down into East Division for sales. So it's a complex issue around -- particularly as you talk about the drug sales and the buyers and the like, that will be something we will constantly be dealing with, but we can do both. We can manage, start to work on going after the drug issues. That's why the drones we believe is a responder model. You know, complaints about drones being able to do the open-air drugs that the Mayor has talked about both here in Kensington and citywide. At the same time we can deal with the unsheltered population, those who are out there openly using drugs at the same time. But I think we're going to constantly be dealing with the elements of drugs in that area and as a result, the violence that has come from that. And we're going to be staying -- that's why we're going to be anchored in this era for a very long time.

How are we responding to some of those businesses that have been terrorized by some of these people who are dealing on our commercial corridor? Are we holding them accountable? Are we providing those businesses the necessary support to be able to consider staying in the Kensington community as a result of the open-air narcotics trade? COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I'll let Commissioner -- it would be my expectation that we are. I mean, it's been the Mayor's expectation that we do a lot of enhancement around our business corridors, not just in Kensington but across the entire city. We have added officers into our business corridors because the Mayor was very clear in her charge that we need to make sure that business, particularly small businesses, are thriving in the city and not closing their shops. That's why our retail theft initiative has been very big as we push to go after the prolific offenders. I mean, you taking something out of a small business with the margins so small we know the impact that can have on them. And so, we think that combined effort of putting additional footbeats not just in Kensington but on our business corridors is important. But I'll let Pete speak specifically, but it would be my expectation with 115 officers in Kensington that we know business down there feel fearful, that they could not thrive as we continue to do this work. And if we're not doing that, then we need to reset and see where we can do a better job. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So that's always been challenging, right. Being able to identify first of all businesses that are legitimate and have the best practices and the well-being of the community in mind and those that are nuisance businesses and magnets for issues. That's why having that curfew bill is a home run for us, and it's really assisting us in trying to tamper down the violence in the afterhour times. But specifically to your question, ma'am, so the best thing about the footbeats is one of our mandates when we send them out into the neighborhood, into the business corridor is to build relationships with those businesses. And time and time again on my own doing site inspections, just coming in and out of the neighborhoods, I'll walk into one of the bodegas or any of the businesses around there just to touch base. And first question I ask, do the officers come in here. More often than not before I'm able to even say something I get unsolicited responses from the businesses saying they appreciate the connection. But just from working in that neighborhood, I understand a lot of these businesses the owners are prisoners in their own store, right, dealing with a lot of the badness on the corners, right, and holding them hostage in their own businesses. So the important part is for the officers that are there walking that beat to kind of walk that balance line but being able to communicate effectively, build a relationship with them but not put anybody in danger too. So one of the cool things that we've had is our beats when they come to this area, they all get issued cell phones. Older cops would do it anyway, but what we're seeing now with the younger officers when we give them a cell phone, that's their business card and they're able to exchange text messages, emails very quickly with a lot of those businesses and we see it happening every day. So instead of a 911 call, the Rosario bodega may text message Officer Jones and say, hey, I got something going on, and they are able to respond effectively. We see that more often than not, especially with this younger generation, how they embrace technology and are able to use that. But it's kind of a backwater way of building relationships with the community, especially along the 3200, 3100 and 2900 blocks of Kensington.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you again for all the detailed testimony and all the work clearly. I wanted to follow up on the issue of people moving to other areas as you're cleaning up one area, right. In May 2024, 59 individuals accepted housing services. And I just wanted to see what the follow-up was on those individuals. Have they been able to have stability post-investment made in them? They accepted the housing. What are those services that are wrapping around? As we have found out that without supportive services, both mental health, physical health, housing and jobs, it is very hard to sustain. So there's not this vicious cycle of people cycling back. And so, I just wanted to know if we can talk about those 59 specific cases, we can see what the process is.

Councilmember, I cannot to be quite frank. I think that's where we do have some of our protection, our privacy protections come in. So we know that 59 people came in on the front end, but then to track them through the system individually I think is where we at this point cannot go and -- someone on my team tap me on the shoulder and tell me if I'm wrong. But I think that we can only state at this point that the 59 came in.

Came in and we don't know what -- we don't need to know their names or anything. We don't know what happened to them?

It is my understanding that we cannot go into further detail than that. However, I will defer to my colleagues at DBHIDS who might have the answer to that question.

Yeah. How do we know if it's effective if we don't know what happens to them? That does not make sense to me. We're not asking for names or any details, but we need to know the investment you made is bearing fruit, right.

Hi. So we've been advised by HIPAA privacy that we're not able to share information related to the specific individuals who were housed after the encampment. Even though it would not be giving specific information about each individual, it could be seen as being identifiable because those individuals could be identified as part of that encampment because people knew who they were living in that location. What I can say is that as people accept services we provide them. And so, we are able to provide case management. We are able to provide connections to behavioral health care, including substance use disorder treatment, medication-assisted treatment, mental health services and getting them connected into each of those lanes of service.

So how are we going to allocate budgets unless we know the success of what you're doing? We cannot give you numbers just like you can. So we're going to say we have no 13 evidence of this actually working, so we're just throwing money out into the stratosphere. That will not work. We need some detailed information without violating HIPAA. And I am sure our legal eagles can figure that out. Because otherwise, I can't tell my constituents we're spending your tax dollars to do this for people with a disorder and we are not being able to tell you if your dollars are being used effectively.

And, ma'am, can I just add that we are working very closely with the Law Department to find a way to do just that. With the PhillyStat360 data, you'll be able to see that on their dashboard. But the community wellness and recovery section of MDO that is in charge of the wellness ecosystem, they are working very closely with Law and our data partners to create and build a data dashboard that you'll be able to see those things while we also respect whatever HIPAA implications we have. We are working very hard on that because we know the importance of evaluation.

And that brings me to the next question. What is the operating budget for the Riverview Center?

We would have to get that information over to you. I don't have the information with me, but we'll respond to the Chairperson and provide the information.

So you were able to tell us there were 35 approximate people. You can share that number, but we don't know how we're paying for it?

We do know. I just don't have it at my fingertips. We'll make sure to share that by end of day.

I would love to get that. And then I wanted to shift to this charging by trend. And I don't know if you can actually answer this. It might be the DA's question. When we look at the narcotics and we see the no 24 change piece, right, in this bar chart, how do we account for that? I thought we are doing many more arrests, right. We are doing -- we're holding people accountable. But is the charging not happening because they have good defense lawyers or what is going on? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: No. The stat that says no change in charge means -- so when we bring the case to the DA's Office and we'll say, charge with possession with the intent to deliver, then 63% of the time the DA's Office is accepting that.

Oh, good. Okay. Because we were reading it -- I was reading it as nothing's happening and -- DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: No, no. No change in how we present it to them. They accepted the charges as we present it to the DA.

And then finally, I wanted to understand the nuisance businesses that have been allowing people to loiter and all of that. Is the Commerce Department working with them for them not to be nuisance businesses? Are we able to transform them, because we need economic activity along that corridor? So if we already have people vested in being a business, can we help them not be a bad business and be a better business? And I don't know what resources are being allocated for that. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: I'm going to invite Commissioner Healy. He's been working with Commerce and the team.

Okay. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: Good afternoon. Fran Healy, Deputy Commissioner for Philadelphia PD. In reference to a Nuisance Task Force, Nuisance Committee actually under the leadership of Kristin Bray, it still continues. We have regular meetings with all the players from the city and the state as to what our nuisance establishments, businesses, bars, wherever they may be, but Commerce is a part of that discussion. So, yeah, our goal is not to shut businesses down. It never has been. Our goal is to get businesses into compliance. And the process that we have with the 9-4400 nuisance business, responsible business, has a three-step process. You get a warning first letter, second letter. They've been incredibly successful and we've been tracking the success at each step of that through Deputy Commissioner Massey's unit or Neighborhood Nuisance Enforcement Unit. They are working together as a team.

Deputy Commissioner Massey is fabulous. But I wanted to see that the resources like lighting and all of those other resources that people are being offered, I just don't want that only to be punitive but to also be growth-oriented. And will that be tracked on your data dashboard?

Yes. I would say that with our Nuisance Committee we work collaboratively to solve problems. We don't want a business to be in a position where -- we're at the enforcement part. This is about prevention, intervention, enforcement. You've heard the Mayor use those terms repeatedly. Part of that is working collaboratively with our partners in Commerce to make sure that businesses are connected to the services that are available and giving them instruction. It also is working with L&I, the Quality of Life Division. And Commissioner Greenwald I'm sure could provide information about her B program where she's giving education to businesses so they're not finding themselves on the enforcement end. We're really working on prevention and making sure that businesses are able to comply. However, if they're not for whatever reason, then we move into the intervention and enforcement. So we do work collaboratively. We check in once a month together, more frequently if that is needed, to make sure that we're making sure that businesses are safe and secure in their communities.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

We did talk a little bit about how we are revamping the Police-Assisted Diversion program. I want to hear a little bit where we are in that process. We met with community residents several times throughout the course of the year. We asked for their support in using the facility over at -- or expanding the services over on Lehigh Avenue. We received support from that community with certain requirements. Can you talk to us a little bit about what is going to change at that location on Lehigh Avenue? Where are we in the process of expanding the services? And how is the work that is happening or going to happen there then fed into our Wellness Court system, right, or is it working in collaboration with AMP Court, and does AMP Court still exist because I haven't heard anything about AMP Court? I haven't heard -- what are we doing with that? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: Good afternoon. With respect to PAD, PAD has been around for quite some time. We're prepared to talk about it tomorrow as well in the hearing for tomorrow. But PAD has been around since 2017. In full earnest it went operation in 2018. Only recently in the Kensington area, trying to coordinate and actually get more people into the net of services we've expanded the scope of PAD. PAD for a long time we excluded -- we just recently excluded shoplifting from the offenses because we are at the same time doing a shoplifting enforcement across the city. However, in the Kensington area we added that back in and we added other offenses so more people would be eligible for the services. And that's really what the feeder system is looking into, what the Director will talk about with the Wellness Court. But the issue is getting the people into the services. We're doing a lot of the arrest referrals, but we're also getting quite a few social referrals, whereas people don't have to be arrested to get access to the services. So the services up at 265 East Lehigh is a phenomenal facility. You've been there. But we're taking things to the next level by bringing people in, getting the medical treatment that they need upfront and we're making more people eligible for the program. What we had in the past, if you know, we modeled this from a Baltimore program. And the issue is there's a lot of hurdles to get into the program. And sometimes the individuals in this community have all the hurdles you can imagine so they're not getting eligible. So we're trying to break those hurdles down. One of the biggest hurdles is outstanding warrants for low-level things that they would never be prosecuted for now, they were for -- it could be prostitution, it could be shoplifting. Minor things from five, six years ago, no one's prosecuting them, but nonetheless that's the bar for them getting into the system. So we've been making a special effort of how we can actually lift those. That's a very big part of what Wellness Court does. But even that, in some of the counties we've actually made personal contacts and we've transported people back to the counties. We've been able to negotiate and make you the warrants kind of not disappear but go on hold so the person can get into services, which is the most important key. We don't want to put these people -- and the last thing we want to do is put these people in a prison cell, either be a Philadelphia cell or Bucks County cell and wait for a hearing. These people have serious problems and bad things happen when they're sitting in a cell. So we're trying to do everything possible to get them the services. So we've broadened the scope I think in the last three months to make sure we gather more people. And that's serving as a feeder system for the Wellness Court, which I'll let the Director talk about.

How many people have gone through Wellness Court? And how successful has Wellness Court been?

Again, Councilmember, and thank you for the question. We will have all of the numbers for you tomorrow. I believe the number is less than 20 that have gone into our Neighborhood Wellness Court. Now, in earnest we have been on the books operating for four weeks so the four Wednesdays, for individual days. One of those days though due to manpower dealing with the unfortunate plane crash that we were more or less unoperational. So we'll say three weeks. Of those we've had I think approximately five folks who were accepted into treatment, yes. And we had two cases that went to trial. One was a guilty summary trial the same day. One was a not guilty trial the same day. The space is set up thanks to the police department they have body cams, so they'll immediately from the arrest that morning be ready to upload and prosecute that case that same afternoon. We have learned a lot over the three weeks. We are feeling that this will be a successful program. We're making these tweaks as we go with the police department. One example of that, and we can get into more detail tomorrow, is we're having some sort of lag time. It was slow to process someone in the morning and get them ready to have a court trial in the afternoon. The police department, tremendous partners, then dedicated a detective which that's a big use of manpower. They put a detective down at that new PAD facility, Neighborhood Wellness Court facility, because they have the expertise in being able to get those approvals in the PAR system up and running. So that's one example of how we've pivoted. We're going to get through this budget season. We're going to continue to scale this up for the warming months, and we do think it's going to be a successful intervention with all the resources we have down there and all the other planning we have. To answer your question, that is one way Kensington Wellness Support Center, it's the new PAD facility, one way is coming in through Neighborhood Wellness Court. The other is through our PAD program, which again we've expanded so that we'll be able to have more folks come in the door through our PAD program. Those who are not eligible for whatever reason for either Neighborhood Wellness Court or PAD, which then would be a step up from Neighborhood Wellness Court, that's when they go to AMP which is the DA-led diversion with the courts. We also have referrals come in, walk-ins who have not been arrested, have not had a criminal justice intervention and they can also avail themselves to services and treatment and everything else that is housed in that facility. So AMP still exists. We believe in this step approach of starting with the sort of summary lower level, but then there are going to be some folks where that's not appropriate, right. And that's where they can then go to AMP, and there's going to be some folks who are not appropriate for AMP, and that's just going to have to be a criminal trial for whatever you arrested for with either misdemeanors or felonies or what have you. So we're building into the continuum these steps of intervention. The benefit of having them all housed in the Kensington Wellness Support Center is that we have all those service providers there who can address each of those issues.

So of the people that have gone through Wellness Court and were referred to a program, are we following them? Do we know if they've stayed in the program, if they've walked out of the program, and if they walk out of the program, what's next? What's the level of accountability?

Yes, we were very thoughtful about that. We want these folks to succeed and we want to be able to talk about their successes frankly and lift them up. We have case management built into this that is really high-level case management provided by DBHIDS. So when they accept services as part of Neighborhood Wellness Court, they have a case manager who tracks them. That case manager, because it's a court- administered program, is in contact with the court on a weekly basis. Whatever the court determines, they will be reporting to the judge, Judge Lewandowski is currently assigned what's been happening in that person's track. We know immediately. We know probably within six hours whether the person has walked away from treatment. We alert the court. The court knows, they've dealt with these types of issues before, they know that this might occur. And so, we're all on the same page as to how we're going to deal with that, with someone walking away. It changes on a case-by-case basis.

So that person that walked out, is there a warrant for that person then issued? And if so, are we actively looking for that person? Do we wait and we happen to run into that person? And let's say for instance we pick this person up, there's a warrant because they violated the Wellness Court requirements. Is that person held accountable for their initial violation?

Councilmember, I'm going to be careful not to speak for the courts and how they're controlling of the bench warrants or whether they're issuing bench warrants in this case. I can tell you what we do not want to do and I believe, again not speaking for the courts, but they understand the issues of substance use disorder. They understand the issues behind issuing a bench warrant for someone and what that means. In fact, that's why we've incorporated with the partnership of the Defender's Association and the District Attorney's Office, that bench warrant clearing aspect of Neighborhood Wellness Court because we're trying to remove bench warrants. We're not trying to give more bench warrants. But we are thinking about ways that we are actively looking for those folks who walk away, bringing it to the court's attention, and then the court on that day will have some options available to the court. But I think again I can say without speaking for the court, that they understand and are very, very cognizant of those issues.

Is there anybody here from the court? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: Can I clarify? Just when it comes to the Wellness Court, the charges that these people are being charged with are non-traffic summary violations. They're not necessarily crimes of the century. These are disorderly conduct, obstructing a highway. They are non-traffic summary offenses. We would not on a normal case with all due respect get arrest warrants if they didn't show up. They're low-level offenses. That's why they were chosen for this program. It's the idea of making that net, that we have the net with PAD. We have another net with the Wellness Court trying to get as many people into the services as possible. We give them -- with PAD not everybody accepts -- they take PAD and then they jump out of the car on the way to services. We give them several shots at the apple quite frankly because it takes them multiple times before they actually accept services. They accept it one day and then they change their mind. So the goal here is really to get more people into services, not necessarily to penalize them. But the court is cognizant of the fact that people disrespect their order and we do have the e-service detail that does, in fact, go out looking for these individuals on the day of the court at the request of the judge and the court staff when they're looking for somebody specifically. But we're not necessarily getting arrest warrants for people that don't come through this program.

So let me just -- what I don't want this to become is the first version of PAD, right, which was what we had a problem with as a community to begin with, right. They were picked up on the street because the officer observed them doing something inappropriate. They were brought to the PAD office. They were given an opportunity to receive services. They said yes. The officers walked away and they walked out the door and this became a revolving door, right. And so, the commitment to the community was we're going to do more to hold people accountable, right. At the end of the day -- I'm not trying to criminalize anybody. So let me just make that real clear here. I'm not trying to criminalize anybody. I want us to hold people accountable so that we continue together to reimagine the Kensington community, where the people who live, work and play there have the quality of life that they deserve, right. And so, we talked about Wellness Court and we talked about holding people accountable. And so, what I think I'm hearing is, yes, Councilwoman, they went through the PAD program. They were connected with services. They went to Wellness Court. They said yes in front of the judge. They got to their place of services and 48 hours later, they walked out the door. And because we're not trying to criminalize anybody, they're now walking our streets again. And so, where is the level of accountability? And are we wasting taxpayer dollars by creating more systems that will continue to push people through and take them out temporarily but they end up back in the neighborhoods where they started. I don't want us to -- for the record, I don't want us to continue to identify funds that are not going to allow us to truly improve quality of life in Kensington, right. I want to get people connected to services. I absolutely do. But at some point, at what point do we hold people accountable for breaking the law, which is why they were originally picked up?

Agreed. And Councilmember -- and I had to learn this lesson from doing my work up in Kensington over the last year. And the lesson I learned, thanks to my brother Rosario as well checking me, is we don't want to over -- this is not going to be a panacea, Neighborhood Wellness Court. It is not going to change the face of Kensington by itself. It will in my honest opinion, in my professional opinion, in a thought that me and my team have put into this be somewhat of a gamechanger in terms of our approach, especially as we talk about things like displacement and that quality of life, that open drug-use wherever it is. It's a way to have that entryway into the system, and there are some meaningful differences between this and anything else we've seen. There's the same day aspect of it. We're bringing online the medical intervention and withdrawal management on the front end. We have plans for that. We -- and let me just be clear about that. We're not there yet but in terms of where we're going. The folks who we're seeing the most resistant out there, if we can get them that immediate withdrawal management, that immediate stabilization on that same day brought in through Neighborhood Wellness Court I think we are going to see more success. They will be in a head space where not only they'll be able to interact with the judge later that day, but also they'll be just frankly readier to be in that bed and stay in that bed once they get there. That period might look like hours. That might look 7 like 48 hours where they're 8 somewhere else and then they're 9 going to the bed so they're not 10 walking away. That's where we're 11 going. And I think that's going to 12 be the model that other cities will 13 look to. So we are standing up 14 this pilot. 15 We understand your 16 concerns. We understand the 17 community's concerns as it relates 18 to that. What we don't want to do 19 is create another sieve or a sieve 20 where it's just a revolving door. 21 I will be the first to end this if 22 it is producing nothing, but we 23 literally just started and I think 24 it is promising. DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: And can I just say to the accountability perspective, just to clarify, not to get too complicated, but as you know a lot of things were somewhat decriminalized under Mayor Kenney. So we were giving non-traffic -- I'm sorry. We were giving CVNs for a lot of these violations and that's under executive order. For this program to work, we had to basically re-elevate them to the statue they are which are non-traffic summaries. That's why the Mayor signed that executive order authorizing us in Kensington during the Wellness Court to arrest them for the non-traffic summary violation. So that is a summary violation under state law. The issue is we're not going to allow this to go over and over again. You get one shot at the apple. After that, you're getting arrested. That's the accountability. We're not going to have this revolving door. As with PAD as well, you only get one or two, I think two shots, at the apple and if you're engaged in the same activity, you're locked up. So that's the accountability side of it. We don't just continue forever. But with this here, there's a lot of steps we put in place for accountability because this is going to be on the record. Obviously, when the charges obviously go away and they get all the services, it can be expunged. But we put procedures in there for the very purpose for accountability. Maybe we didn't explain that well enough when we created the program, but we did it specifically by allowing the Mayor to give us special exemptions in this area to make a full-fledged arrest for these non-traffic summary sets. So these are full- fledged arrests that go on the record and hopefully they'll be expunged. But nonetheless, that's the accountability perspective of it. So I see your point. And I hope I clarified that for you. But there is -- and I appreciate the revolving door concept.

That's something we're trying to stop. You don't get on this merry-go- round with them. Once or twice. After that, you're getting locked up. And that's the important part because the community needs to see us taking action on the street, and that's the important thing. They can't see the same person just walking around as if nothing happened and the cops did nothing. That's frustrating for the officers as well.

Thank you. And before I recognize Councilmember Squilla, for those individuals that don't qualify, that the officer picks up and that don't qualify for Wellness Court but who broke the law and now have to go through our prison system, we've all heard in the past the issues that we had with our prison system. How are we working together to ensure that the prison system is prepared to be able to receive these individuals? Have they been a part of the conversation? Understanding that you all are doing very specific, intentional work in the Kensington community and that this population needs different types of resources when they're entering our system to prevent death or from these people having to suffer as they're being processed, what is the conversation and where are we in making sure that these people that are going into our systems receiving the resources that they need? And I know that you guys are not from the prison system, but I want to make sure that they are a part of the conversation in case these folks do appear at their doorstep.

It's a great question, Councilmember. And Commissioner Resnick at Prisons, I'm sure, I'm sure one of his top priorities with reducing the prison population, we have these conversations, they are in constant contact with the police department and myself, so as it relates to any strain on their system or any possible strain, which they have not had yet as a result of Neighborhood Wellness Court, only one person has actually gone to the prison and that's because they had an outstanding warrant for a felony crime that we couldn't do anything about, I believe that's -- that is a case where we couldn't deal with it so they had to go to prison. Prisons was well aware that they were on their way. So as a first step there was that notice, right, that an individual is coming through. And then the individual steps that prisons taking up there not only making sure that their wings are being patrolled more or just more eyes on folks who are coming up who might have substance use disorder, they're keen to that. And also, they're -- I'm not sure if they've started piloting yet, but they will be piloting soon that bracelet where they're able to monitor someone's vitals if they come into the system. But as taking one giant step back, it is our collective goal not to send a single person up to prison if we can avoid it. That's why we have the bench warrant clearing court. That's why all hands are on deck up to -- the Commissioners are receiving calls from Wellness Court and they are making calls to the other counties to see what they can do, and we're being very successful at that so that folks don't go up to the prison in the first place. But we certainly are preparing in the event unfortunately if they do. And there will be folks who will have to go. There absolutely are going to be folks who have outstanding warrants for felony crimes that are serious. And guess what? They got to go up and sit and wait and go back and face justice. That's just going to be the way it is.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Mark Squilla.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all for being here today. I mean, it is refreshing to see this effort and, yes, there is a lot more work to do, but it's exciting to see that we're all rowing in the same direction and want to help as many people as possible, and data will help us understand it. I know you said you couldn't have numbers. I think you're going to find a way to be able to share numbers on people who are receiving services. You have to be able to know we've done this all the time, people with recidivism, even with people who relapse. We know those numbers. So there's a way to be able to give those numbers and to be able to see whether we're successful or not. Because you have to be able to understand, we have to change things if we're not successful, right. We have to be able to adapt. So I believe you'll be able to come up with those numbers in the future. And I know we're going to talk about Wellness Court and AMP Court tomorrow, but AMP Court's been running for over a year. It was supposed to be five days a week. It's still only three days a week so we hardly have any people that's sent to that, and we'll have to speak to the District Attorney tomorrow on that also. But that's got to be a collaborative effort between the Police and the District Attorney's Office because they do have to send them over to AMP Court. But is there a way now? AMP Court is supposed to be three days a week. The numbers are very, very low on the number of people that are going to AMP Court. Do we know is that collaboration -- are we working in that collaboration now to send people for AMP? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER HEALY: Yes, sir. That's not our decision or not our call. That's the District Attorney's Office, I believe, that refers the individuals to the AMP Court. We do the arrest. We make the misdemeanor arrest. At that point there, it's a decision up to the District Attorney's Office with the AMP Court.

And that leads me to the next question, because obviously we have to coordinate efforts there in order to be more successful to give people -- and even the Defender's Association that was very supportive of AMP knows that we have a possibility to help these individuals because if you do go through that program, you can also hopefully discharge any charges that were filed and people could get the services they need. But you see narcotics, and I was looking at the narcotics, 63% of the charges were not changed which to me is a good sign. That means you're charging properly to the DA that's seeing that the same way. The challenge I see is with gun crime, and we'll have to ask. Does the DA work with you on initial charges when you receive these in order to -- only 25% of those charges were no 4 change. So either they were increased or they were decreased. Is there something we could do better in communication with them as we charge those individuals so that we don't have that fluctuation in the charges? COMMISSIONER BETHEL: So what we're constantly working with -- I mean, part of the process is the detective will submit charges and we will get sometimes a declination or there is a conversation around there needs to be more evidence. As it stands today, there's some things that the DA's Office is requiring around DNA evidence and other things, body- worn cameras. So there could be a myriad of reasons as to why those people could have been recharged at a later date, but they may be required that we don't have access to the body-worn camera. There may be some other evidentiary things that may not be there. So it's hard for us to kind of -- we can break that down for you more, Councilman --

I don't want really a breakdown. I just want to know can we coordinate better so that -- COMMISSIONER BETHEL: We are working with their Gun Task Force. We are working with the DA's Office to elevate individuals that we think should have higher bail. Obviously, they have their own system that they use to make their determining factor, but we are communicating with them. But at the end of the day, they're still at times making different decisions. For me my purpose is, I mean, you know, you have a gun, you need to get charged, right. I mean, you got to get a gun illegally, you got to carry a gun illegally and you have to use it illegally. So that's been my core position since I came back to this position here. And so, I would hope gun charges will be at 100%, but we're going to continue to have those conversations with the DA's Office to increase those numbers.

Right, so that's two things. Hopefully we'll work tomorrow and we'll discuss this. I want to get it on the record. So hopefully the DA could also have those answers for AMP Court and why those numbers are so low. But obviously if you have an illegal gun, that's a crime so that's a charge right there, right. And so, how do we work to make sure that those folks -- and whether there's a way to work with those individuals who have those charges filed, you know, the first time offense and things like that, that we work to help those folks. But to me, I think that we have to try to work a better angle to keep the no changes, that that number should be higher and not both the increased charges and decreased charges higher than the ones that are not changed at all, just at least on the gun crime. But I want to say that this is so exciting for me and something we've been trying to really work on for the last eight years, and it's great to see the effort and we're trying something. And, yes, not everything's going to work and we're going to have to make changes, but it's just great and we're going to make mistakes along the way and you're going to see some things you need to tweak, but that's what's key about those numbers. So hopefully the Law Department get your act together, figure out a way to come up with those data points because that's going to be important in deciding what changes to make, what we need to do, what resources you need. You can't get resources if you don't have data, right. So I really appreciate all your efforts here. And to me, this is exciting work for us. And because to me, this is not just Kensington. This is a citywide issue and this is going to be addressed citywide. And I know we talk about displacement. And, yes, you will have displacement early on, but as this works its way through you'll see this happening throughout the city of Philadelphia so that folks no matter where they have these issues will be treated the same throughout the city. And that's when you really see this trend changing for the city of Philadelphia. So thank you for your efforts and continued work on this. And we want to be very much partners and help as possible. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: Councilman, I appreciate your words. But I also want to -- as you look at this data, this is just the charging. So we also have to look downstream as what's happening beyond just the charging because you don't get a full context of what's going on by just looking at this. We gave you kind of front- end. Here's what the charges are, but we also have to look at what is happening as we move through this process.

But I don't see that. We don't have that. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: No, we didn't provide that. But I think that's part of the conversation that goes hand-in- hand. As the Councilwoman talked about accountability and what's happening, we also have to look at the continuum of this process because some of these jobs will stay in the system for years because they're getting continued. So we definitely need to continue to look at all of these areas and to see where the accountability is being at all stages of the process.

Well, I mean for all purposes, intents and purposes, we would love to have that data also to be able to look at that holistically. And there's a lot of areas of why things went certain ways, and I'm sure there's plea agreements and other things that get worked into this. But it's good to know. Because as we are moving as a city, we need to know the final outcomes in order to determine what we need to do more in the beginning, right. And we talked about prevention, intervention, diversion and enforcement, right. What more do we need to do. And if we don't have those numbers, we're not going to know. So if you can provide them in the future, send them to the Chair, it would be great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I want to move into the Kensington Fire Task Force. We launched the task force in November. I just want you to know that, you know, some of you all think I'm crazy but I like to test systems myself. And so, I see a fire and I call the fire in myself because I want to know, right. I am really excited to report that within six minutes of my call to 911 there was a fire truck that showed up to respond to that open fire. My concern and my question is I didn't see anybody else that came with that fire truck, right. And so, I know that we talked about the purpose of this task force being proactive, coming out and finding the fires themselves or community residents reporting what they see, which is what I did. We also talked about mental health specialists or wraparound services also being dispatched. I didn't see that. I've done this twice. I've called in two separate fires. They both responded between four and six minutes of my call, which I was extremely grateful for. But what about the wraparound services? You know, you guys extinguished over 300 illegal fires since it started. Of those 300, how many people were connected to services? And who were the people that were dispatched and what are some of the challenges that you all are still experiencing around the work that this task force is doing? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So with regards to your specific instances, remember we have the task force that operates in the area during a specific time period and then you also have the overlap with 911 coverage. So one of two would have responded. And it seems in your case it was regular -- the firehouse came out, not specifically the task force. And again, the task force is proactive so it's kind of like a little train. They have their routes that they kind of hit on a regular basis. And with regards to numbers, I don't have specifics. I can get that back to you, but I have seen -- especially since it became a little colder over the last couple of months, we've seen substantial increases where on a regular basis we were getting the report outs on our daily notices of zeros where individuals were accepting services. I mean, in one instance it was 15 folks in one night. But again, it was probably more related to the cold weather, you know what I mean. But those are instances every opportunity we get where we can kind of move folks along and connect them to something. It's always positive in our eyes.

And if I can add, Councilmember, you're exactly right. That's probably where this is going, the next cold season. So the task force, they have Merakey Social Services assigned to them. They'll proactively -- if they see it, they will have the Merakey person with them to engage. If it's a regular fire call 911, then they'll respond with regular fire and they do not have that task force. They do not have that Merakey element, but that's a good idea if it's going to be interacting with folks who need that service.

How many mental health specialists are a part of the work that you all are doing?

For the task force, Councilmember?

(Gestured).

We just have our Merakey representative -- I'm sorry, two.

Is that enough?

I think currently with the numbers we're seeing it's probably enough. And I'm not -- that's not my lane, but from what we have been seeing with numbers in our engagement levels, which did start out low but are increasing, I think that that's probably appropriate for now. We certainly will circle back though after I confer with my team to make sure that that is enough.

So we have two that work with the task force. And with the work that the police department is doing, do we have -- I know we talked about mental health specialists going out as a part of a team as well. Do we have mental health specialists that go out with you all? And if so, tell us how successful that is or what some of the challenges are? DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ROSARIO: So again, that's in partnership with Merakey. We do have the East Service Detail that functions in that space. We just had a little bit of a bump in personnel to help support the Fire Task Force. So we have more overnight coverage during a midnight shift. But on average, my understanding it's two social workers that are available. And I may be off, but I know there's usually a minimum of two social workers covering a shift to be able to assist the service detail as they're out performing their duties.

You just mentioned overnight. We've said consistently in all of our conversations that this population is most vulnerable overnight. I have held multiple community meetings over the course of the last few months around mobile services and the way that they provide resources or connect people to services on the ground. We are in the process of trying to figure out how we all come to a happy medium and continue to provide those essential services through mobile providers. Are you all still experiencing challenges during that 11:00 or 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. time frame? And I ask this question because I talk to multiple people, right, providers, community residents. I talk to some of the guys that are on the street in the police department. Everyone seems to agree that that is still the most challenging time, right. It is when the folks that are suffering from addiction are telling us is their most vulnerable time, but we still are seeing or experiencing challenges in trying to connect people with services during that time because I guess we choose not to be able to provide services at that time, right. I don't know. I'm still trying to get the answers. But tell me why and if that still continues to be the most vulnerable time. And if so, what are we doing to respond, whether it be through outreach services during that period of time, whether it be mental health providers? What are we doing during that most vulnerable time for this individual who has consistently said that this is when they would be most likely to receive services?

Thank you (inaudible). (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

I want to recognize -- I see Crystal coming up. I want to recognize her work in the conversations that we've been having over the course of the last few weeks around mobile providers and working with us to continue the conversation about how we change how we do services. I want to make sure that I put that on the record because, again, we were not here 12 months ago.

Thank you, Councilmember. Crystal Yates- Gale, Deputy Managing Director Health and Human Services. I am going to turn over the question to the Executive Director of Office of Homeless Services, but just want to provide the brief that all of our social services departments have requested -- hope you guys approve -- funding for additional outreach services so that we can cover the overnights and late nights. And I'll let Cheryl or ask Cheryl to add to that.

And can you also answer how much? What is that ask? What is that dollar amount?

We have it from several different departments. I'll also send that to you when we send the operation budget for the Wellness Village.

Hello. Cheryl Hill, Office of Homeless Services. One of the things that we are trying to do and we're actually piloting right now with the enhanced Code Blue services is how to do wraparound services 5 hours. 6 So as Crystal mentioned, 7 in our ask we are actually looking 8 to expand our intake services to a 9 24-hour component. We are also 10 looking to expand into other 11 neighborhoods. Currently we have 12 two intake centers and then two 13 afterhour centers. So we do have 14 some 24-hour components, but we 15 recognize the need for more because 16 homelessness is not a 9:00 to 5:00 17 entity, so we do want to be able to 18 expand those services. And as she 19 mentioned, we do have some of those 20 budget asks that she'll be able to 21 provide. 22

23 What does the case look like for 24 those afterhour services for the people that work in that shift?

The caseload? So for -- I can't speak to outreach and DBH or Amanda can speak to that. But right now what we do is we have centers where sometimes there are lines of people trying to come in. So one of the things that we are trying to pilot this year is to actually expand our bed capacity because that is part of the problem. When people are willing to come in, we don't have a place for them to go. So that is one of the things that we're looking at, which is what we've piloted through some of the warming centers. But anywhere from or 20 up of people who are waiting, so 21 that is one of the things that 22 we've noticed. 23 But also, I'll reiterate 24 what the Councilmember said earlier. One of the biggest needs are for women. Because while we do have beds that are usually open for men, we do struggle with having capacity for women. So we're looking to expand that as well.

I think I asked this question earlier, but nobody answered it. And that was, will this system, this PhillyStat system allow us to see beds in realtime, right? I know that we start off the day at whatever X number of beds. And as those beds are filled, will this system, is there a way for those who are doing the intake and remove or place someone in that bed, will that be reflective on PhillyStat in realtime?

That is our goal and that is one of the things that we are also putting a proposal together for, is to do live bed tracking. Right now that data is reported daily in the mornings, but we want to get to the point that we can track that live in realtime and you'll be able to see it on the system in realtime.

Thank you. And then I want to shift to SEPTA. Thank you, ladies. I know that there has been conversation about some of our unhoused population spreading around, but that also means that they spread into our public safety or our public transportation systems. As a result of Merakey removing some of their outreach workers, how has it impacted the work that we're currently doing on the ground and how we're responding to the individuals that have remained on our systems? I have an employee who travels on public transportation with her twin daughters every day. And on a consistent basis I hear about the challenges that she faces with her daughters and what they see on public transportation. So what are we doing to be able to respond to the issues that we know still exist on SEPTA?

I will just say that we are in contact with SEPTA regularly. We communicate at the highest level in terms of what their sort of support around the infrastructure. I can't speak to directly what they're doing on the transit. I do know that we recently though did have a meeting, Councilmember, public-safety related meeting where they presented some numbers of the work they're doing. We can certainly see if we can get you those numbers that they presented to us to show their efforts.

I would appreciate that. COMMISSIONER BETHEL: And I will say, Councilwoman, we work with Chief Lawson on a regular basis communicating with SEPTA, but that is the challenge, right. I mean, we are covering everything above and they have their own police department is covering their system. And what we also caution is everybody that we see in other parts of city didn't come from Kensington either, you know what I mean. So there's been this conversation now that every time someone in a shelter shows up somewhere and somehow they are being displaced from Kensington. Even though we know many of our folks in Kensington have significant health issues and other things going on. So we are working with SEPTA. Myself and my team, Commissioner Stanford and others met with SEPTA, their union. That's why you saw an increase in our SEPTA checks. But I have to manage the expectations. I mean, we are trying to do our best outside of the SEPTA system to address the issues we are -- we know because of the corridor and the impact that has on us. And you heard Commissioner Rosario talk about how he uses his men and women to ride the system, but that's a challenge, you go mobile on us and moving around. Many of them will secrete to other areas, as we know, overnight and then come back. We know that. And so, we're trying to better coordinate our efforts, but it does cause some challenges for us as we talked about when we start to spread our staffing even further out. And particularly when you discuss overnight, I mean that is one of our challenging periods as you know and even from a staffing perspective, particularly into the wee hours. So we got a lot of work to do as you know, but we're trying to do our best. But SEPTA has a workforce that we rely on them to manage their SEPTA property.

Thank you. I want to say thank you very much for -- Councilmember, do you have any questions? I want to just make sure that --

Just would like to --

Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.

First off, also like to thank our Fire Department that's sitting back there patiently. I know they're putting out those 300 fires in the streets in Philadelphia. That's a big deal. I've seen many of them things get out of control. And what people don't understand is they're not burning wood that's just going to sit in one place. They're burning garbage that sends sparks and flames flying through the air all over the place. So putting them out is really crucial to us keeping our housing stock that we have there because we've seen on too many occasions what happens when they don't come out and it catches the house out front of where they're sitting, because they just set up outside somebody's house. I mean, it's not like -this is what they do. They're sitting there on that corner and they light the fire right there at that corner house. And the chances of every time they do that that house going on fire increases every time. So I'd like to thank that. And the only other one was I would like to know what is the magic number of employees that you would need to make this program whole so that we can be running at hours a day? Even if it's just 14 a wish I want to know how many 15 people we're talking about, 16 especially because we need more of 17 these people out there. 18

(Inaudible). 19

I'm 20 sure you would. 21

Thank you for 22 that question. So to effectively 23 enact services, the best practices 24 is a 1-to-20 ratio for services across the board. For us, like I mentioned we definitely need more outreach. We definitely need more intake. We have provided some of those numbers because we were instructed by the Managing Director's Office to put together what is realistic for ending and preventing homelessness, so we will be able to provide those. And I believe we're also collaborating with our numbers with DBHIDS ask as well to make sure that we have a comprehensive number. But in reality if you want to be able to provide comprehensive services, the ratio for the case managers and the staff is about a 1-to-15, 1-to-20 ratio.

So are these all social workers or are they spread across on different actual --

It's a combination.

-- mental health --

Absolutely.

-- social workers and then just regular intake people that may be certified in different areas to help?

It's a combination and then it also depends on the need of the individuals. People who have dual diagnosis may need a lot more services so you try to have the caseload a little bit lower. When you're talking outreach, they can work with a wider variety of people because they're not necessarily interacting with the same individuals every day. So it really depends on the need and the services that are being provided.

Throw me out a number. How many employees?

Well, I will say I can definitely get you that number by the end of today because we already put it together and we provided it to the Managing Director's Office. But like I said, I at least want to make sure that it's a comprehensive number given the need and the ask that DBHIDS has also put together.

Yeah. The only reason I ask is I know that some of these positions are going to be hard to fill on top of it, not just to mention that we're having a hard time finding somebody to pick up sanitation let alone a social worker or a mental health professional. So I get the difficulties. I'd just like to have a number so we know what it is in real people and how many people we will then be able to service hours a day.

Absolutely. 5

I 6 think it's important for us to know 7 and at one point in one of these 8 hearings we talked about looking at 9 this like an orchestra and who's 10 the conductor and who's gathering 11 all this information. So is there 12 anybody in this process that can 13 say to us, this is the number of 14 outreach workers we have on the 15 ground currently and there's not 16 enough of them and we need this 17 number? This is the number of 18 social workers that we currently 19 have and they're all working in 20 these buckets with not enough and 21 we need this much? 22 I think it's important 23 for us to know this information as 24 we go into the budget cycle so that we have a better understanding how we're advocating and how we're responding to our constituencies. Who is the conductor in this process? Is that you, Adam? Are you the collector of all information and the one that knows all of the information in every single one of these buckets of need, of challenges, and how we're pushing the process forward? Do we know that information? Can somebody tell us how many outreach workers are there, even all of our systems together, Office of Homeless Services, (inaudible) outreach, police outreach, how many outreach do we have and how many social workers do we have currently working in the Kensington community? Do we know that number?

As it relates to Kensington, that will be our response --

Talk into the mic so that our stenographer --

As it relates to Kensington work, Councilwoman Lozada, yes, that person is me. We are working with our partnership with PhillyStat360 with the Managing Director's Office as you've seen to be able to get those numbers. We're going to then have those numbers live and transparent and accessible to the public. But as it relates to Kensington, yes, that will be me and we will be delivering on that. We just --

So we don't currently know how many average and how many social workers are currently in the footprint?

We certainly can get that number. Yes, we do have that number.

Could somebody share that with me?

Hi. Amanda David. For Kensington Outreach Zone we currently have 61 7 outreach workers, DBHIDS-contracted 8 homeless outreach workers in the 9 zone. In calendar year 2023 we had 47. So we've had a 30% increase in outreach workers in Kensington.

So you have 61 outreach workers?

Yes.

Okay. And how many social workers?

So we have -- I was just able to provide the outreach team numbers. We can get back to you with the social workers. They do provide a level of connection and social work type services with the making connections and such. We also do have a Morris team that's out there and we have community wellness engagement -- DBHIDS has community wellness engagement teams out there as well and I'll get those numbers to you guys and we'll send them over.

And 61 is the number of outreach workers. That includes everybody, right? That includes whatever contracts are out there that are issued by --

That is the DBHIDS contracted --

Okay. So that's what I'm asking, Adam. You're the conductor. I want us to be able to say, listen, in the Kensington community we have X number in total of outreach workers, of social workers. Tell me where we are.

And we will get those to you, but I wanted to give some more clarification. As you both know, there are multiple entry points into the system. So the Office of Homeless Services has outreach workers out in Kensington --

I understand that right, Crystal. And that's why I'm saying who's --

-- what is the number.

-- the conductor and give me the number.

We will get that to you. The conductor is Adam Geer, Adam Thiel and Commissioner Bethel. They are all working collaboratively and we are also working collaboratively in the budget process to get that actual number.

And that is what I want to show, right. I want us to be able to say in 2022 and 2023 in '24 and in '25, we've progressively increased the number of X in order to respond to the work that we are currently doing. However, we need X in order to get us all to meet our goal.

Thank you. And one point I wanted to make too, Councilmember. As you know we also get calls into MDO, into PPD, into OPS about people that are in other parts of the city and other Councilmanic Districts. And part of our ask, when you see it is not only Kensington, it is so that the people that are currently serving Kensington don't have to always leave Kensington to go to X community because that's what currently happens because most of the resources or all of the resources are in Kensington. So we want to be able to cover citywide. So that will be an increase for Kensington and an increase across the city from all of the collaborating departments, DBHIDS, OHS, OPS, PPD and PFD.

I want to be able to respond to Kensington specifically. This is the Special Committee on Kensington --

We can.

Kensington is my neighborhood, right. I know there's of us and 16 everybody is responsible for 17 advocating for their communities. And while all of the work that we're doing really is focused on ensuring that we're responding to the actual problem, they're not spreading people out, I think is the responsibility of my colleagues to advocate for their own folks -

100 percent.

So I just want to know. I want to be able to say, right, that we have progressively responded to the needs of the people because we said we were going to prioritize them and we've increased the number of people that are responding here by X number, and this is where our money is going, right. This is where the residents of the 7th Council District who have been paying their taxes and have been responsible citizens that have been occupied by a government-inflicted issue, this is where your money is going, right. We're responding. We're recognizing that we caused this and now we're responding to this and this is where we are. I think that -- I'll wrap up by saying that we have shown that when the Mayor said she was going to prioritize this, she's done that, right. This doesn't lie to us, but we still have some work to do. And I want to be able to help all of you tell the story.

We appreciate that.

I want to be able to say this is where we are and this is where we need to be. And when we're advocating for dollars in order to reimagine a better 7th Council District, I want to be able to say, why, right.

Absolutely.

And so, I appreciate -- I know that there's no other panel after you. So I want to say thank you. Thank you for coming here and telling us about the work that you're doing, about the challenges that we still have ahead of us and about the progress that we've made. Extremely grateful. We have a lot of work to do, but I think that for the first time in a really long time, like I said yesterday we're all moving in the same direction and we all have the same goal. And so, appreciate that. I invite you to stay after this panel to hear from some of the community residents who are impacted by the work that you all are doing every day. Sometimes we see it through a lens of service. We are focused on a certain level of work and community residents see it a different way. And so, I encourage you and I invite you to stay and hear from some of our community residents about their experiences on a regular basis. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

Thank you.

There are no further panels to speak regarding this resolution. Mr. Clerk, will you please call the first witness or the first panel to speak on public comment regarding this resolution.

Yes, Madam Chair. For public comment, we have Eileen Callahan, Alfred Klosterman. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)

And again for the record, this is public testimony regarding Resolution 241119.

You may proceed.

Thank you so much for being with us this morning. Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.

Okay. My name is Al Klosterman. I'm a member of the Harrowgate Civic Association. I testified here when Councilmember Lozada first introduced her Marshall Plan for Kensington several times since. I'm here again today asking for more help. We're seeing some progress, but it's just been slow. After police actions last year, many drug users migrated to our area above Allegheny Avenue. One real problem is that most of the actions are happening below Allegheny, and those of us above are being neglected. Now, Director Geer recognized this at our December civic meeting, and he said that due to a shortage of outreach workers, none were available in our area. And luckily yesterday, he did say he'd look into widening the efforts here which would help us quite a bit. Discussing locations like that with residents is just a key thing that gets neglected. Also, we were told last year we would get foot patrols, but that just never happened. Some initiatives that sound good haven't helped much yet. The Wednesday Wellness Court only works one day a week for three or four users so it becomes a drop in the bucket. A stronger effort is needed. If any users were taken off the street, the number is just too small to notice. Please support expanding it. Yesterday night's weather doubled the number of users passing my house to score of fentanyl. The growing numbers are really discouraging. It appears that not much the police can do with the users and dealers when we call. They come to a troubled corner, chase the dealers and users away who come right back when the police are gone. So we just get a sense of futility. Can more be done in this regard. And finally, as things stand neither the residents nor users are really being well-served. We residents feel left out of the discussions and get discouraged. The rate of progress has just been too slow. We've been at this fight for over five years now. Please realize that we're tired and patience is really hard to come by. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony, Mr. Al. And I know that there is some level of frustration and I think that all of us have been consistent in saying that this took a really long time to create this. This situation has been brewing in the Kensington Harrowgate community for many, many years and I understand your frustration. It is going to take us a long time to respond to, and that is why it is important for us to continue these conversations. It's important for residents like yourself to continue to show up at these hearings and continue to hold us accountable. Yes, it is slow, right. We would like to -- I would like to have seen it resolved in 12 months, but that's not a realistic ask and I recognize that. We're in a different place. We're in a different place than we were two years ago. We're in a different place than we were a year ago in that we are now working with a group of people who are just not talking, right. We see some concrete action behind the work that is being done. We also see some employees of government continuing to show up, even though sometimes as a community including myself as an elected we beat them up, right. But I think that we're dealing with a group of people who truly want to be with us in reimagining the Kensington community and restoring quality of life because you and I and the children that are being raised there deserve that. And so, I appreciate you coming to testify today. I appreciate you continuing to stay consistent and holding us accountable. We're going to continue to work as partners together to make sure that we continue to push forward. There's a commitment from myself. There's a commitment from Public Safety Director Adam Geer, from Deputy Commissioner Rosario and Commissioner Bethel, and more important than anything from Mayor Parker. Would you please call the -- do you have a comment, Councilmember?

Just like you, I just want to thank you for always showing up. No 16 matter where I go I see you. Whether it's Harrowgate, Juniata, he travels. He gets around. And I know things are going slow, but you should be proud because this is a direct correlation to what you guys were doing, the community groups. Harrowgate is very active. I mean, you guys police the park. That's neighborhood stuff and I appreciate you for doing that. And like my colleague said, it may be a little slow but we're not done and we have a commitment to you guys and we're not going nowhere. I'm not going nowhere. I ain't moving.

Thank you, Councilmember. Will the Clerk please call the next person to testify on public comment.

Yes, Madam Chair. Next we have Leah Sheppard. (Witness approached Witness table.)

Hi. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Leah Sheppard. I live in and own a home in Councilmember Lozada's District in Kensington. I also co-parent three children who have lost their fathers to overdose. This plan will not help those children or any children like them. But I say all this to show I have a deep personal connection to the neighborhood and to the issue of substance use disorder. According to a review of substance use disorder research, the evidence showing that coerced treatment works, that it works, is very limited. So there's not a lot of evidence showing that it works. There's more evidence showing that coerced treatment does not work and that it can potentially harm the people that it's treating. So researchers advise that policymakers prioritize noncompulsory treatment based on this current lack of evidence. The idea (inaudible) treatment is especially alarming considering the plan's glaring holes in the treatment landscape. For example, there's little to no withdrawal management in place during ER wait times, which has led to multiple withdrawal deaths of people in custody. And more research of national overdose mortality shows a connection between increased policing, increased police funding and an increase in overdose deaths. So knowing this lack of evidence, supporting police- assisted substance use disorder treatment and knowing that increased policing has been linked to higher rates of overdose death as well as knowing the City's history of defunding policing and attacking voluntary pathways to wellness, I do not believe this plan is an effective long-term treatment for substance use disorder. Additionally, one of the key goals of Mayor Parker's Kensington Community Revival Plan is to "remove the presence of drug users." This goal could say that the goal is to support people struggling with substance use disorder in their recovery process, but it doesn't say that. So it feels to me like the real goal of this plan is to disappear people. And in response to this feeling, I'll just end with a quote from Angela Davis that "Prisons do not disappear problems. They disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant and racially-marginalized communities has literally become big business." Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Sheppard. Can you stay there for a second. I just want to ask you a question. I think you alluded to us wanting to disappear people. And I want to say for the record that none of us doing this work want people to disappear. I think that what you've heard today and what you've heard consistently is that we are working diligently to ensure that people get connected to services, right. Because as a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that people who are living unsheltered in our community, who are someone's loved one, that they live and that they are responded to in a way that is responsible. And I think for a long time as a government we've not been responsible in allowing people to live on our streets. At this moment I'm speaking specifically about Kensington, but I think in general as a city it is irresponsible of us to continue to allow to leave individuals who are not just suffering from substance abuse disorder but from open wounds and other very serious medical conditions to live on our streets unsheltered. And so, I think that it's disingenuous to say that we are wanting to have people disappear when everything that we have done and everything that we've talked about and we continue to talk about is connecting people to resources to allow them to also have quality of life, right. I receive calls from mothers all the time that say my child is living on the street, my child is suffering and it's not just from substance abuse. As an elected, what are you doing, right. And I have a responsibility, as do my colleagues, to say we're doing everything we possibly can to ensure that individuals are being connected to services. Is that easy? Absolutely not. It is difficult. The decisions that we are making are not easy decisions, but I want you to know, right, that we don't want people to disappear. We want people to receive services and understand that they too deserve quality of life, that they too deserve to be treated with dignity. I always find it difficult to understand how some of us want us as electeds to respond to animals differently than we respond to humans. And so, I want you to know that that is not what we're trying to do. We really want people to understand that they deserve, they deserve quality of life. In order for us to help them see the possibilities of a better life for themselves, we need to make difficult decisions, right. I appreciate you coming here. I appreciate you attending community meetings. I appreciate you putting on the record how you feel, but I will also want you to know that that is not what we want to do, right. And if you continue to feel that way, I want you to continue to reach out to us because maybe we're not seeing things the way you're seeing it. I want you to continue to know that we're here to listen, right, and that you're appreciated and that you're welcome to continue to be a part of the conversation, but know that we definitely don't want people to disappear. We want them to be healthy. We want them to be connected to services, and we don't want them living on our streets unsheltered because they don't deserve it either. Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you.

Will the Clerk please call the next person to testify on public comment.

Madam Chair, there are no more names for public comment.

There being no further witnesses to testify, I will ask if there is anyone else present in this hearing whose name we have failed to call or that wishes to offer testimony on the resolution being considered today to please come forward. (Witness approached Witness table.)

Thank you for being with us this morning. Please state your name for the record and begin with your testimony.

Thank you. Okay. I have to read from here because I'm kind of nervous, but all right. Hello, Councilmembers. My name is Kateri Andriole, and I'm a harm reductionist. As we approach one year of the implementation of Mayor Parker's carceral offensive on the Kensington community, I want to briefly review the last year from my perspective. In May of last year police closed down Kensington, Kensington Avenue and forcibly relocated unhoused individuals to unknown locations. In spite of promises made by members of this body that the sweep would be led by outreach services, police officers arrived before the posted time, rendering outreach services redundant. Then an entire new class of rookie police officers were assigned to Kensington. We have documentation of verbal and physical harassment by these rookie police officers and even their superiors towards the unhoused community drug users and harm reduction workers providing life- sustaining supplies throughout the expected, predictable crisis that was the heat wave this summer as well as novel attacks like Parker's defunding of safe syringe distribution. This year I also saw the deaths of Amanda Cahill and Joey Gabor while in custody. And despite pleas by their family members, harm reduction workers and the medical community and legal advocates, despite the $25 million ruling against the City to rectify the appalling conditions in our prisons and jails, the Mayor plowed ahead with a wellness court model that to date has been unsuccessful in connecting people to treatment they want and has unnecessarily involved countless others with the legal system on top of the issues they were already facing. Many of us warned you that things would play out this way. Viewing the empty streets of Kensington as a success is nothing but violent naivete. You do not understand the lived realities of surviving on the street. Physically dependent on a toxic drug supply and your misplaced confidence is pushing people further away from the care community and resources that are actually helping them. I want to speak directly to all residents of Kensington who would identify themselves as housed or see people living on the streets as a nuisance. The Kensington Caucus is using you. Mayor Parker is using you. They are happy to put you and your unhoused neighbors against each other. They thrive off of your frustration because it allows them to get away with the most expedient and deadly policies against people who are unhoused. By quickly disposing of the unhoused community, they clear the path for real estate developers who will do nothing more than gentrify and price you out of the community that you care so much about. They are not building a Kensington for you and not for the elderly neighbors and children they frequently cite to justify their actions. They are building it for their real estate investor donors. How do I know this? Because they have shown absolute disrespect for community ties and refuse to acknowledge interpersonal relationships as a pathway to healing. Rather than supporting spaces where folks who are struggling can be heard, seen and holistically supported, Councilmember Lozada personally intervened to kick Savage Sisters out of their Kensington storefront. Zoning restrictions were placed on the number of medical providers operating at Prevention Point and crucially continued harassment by police officers has made it nearly impossible to have the most sensitive and transformative conversations that we have with folks in Kensington in public. How do you build trust with community members when there are cops breathing down your neck. The Kensington community deserves better than this. The city of Philadelphia deserves better than this. The 76ers arena debacle made clear where these Councilmembers' loyalties lie. They will sell your neighborhood out from underneath you for a chance to better their political standing or an opportunity to run for higher office.

Kensington belongs to the people, not the Kensington Caucus.

Thank you so much for your testimony. You can stay there because I now want to speak in response to your testimony. I'm going to try to be respectful and polite. Where do you live?

Um -

Probably not in Kensington --

I work in Kensington but I don't --

At the end of the day, my responsibility is to be the voice of the people who elected me to be here, the people who for over 10, years have been ignored because 11 certain types of work were the 12 priority. And I'm going to say it 13 very clearly because I want you to 14 understand harm reduction was the 15 priority in the Kensington 16 community, not the people who live 17 there, not the children who are 18 being raised there. They are now 19 the priority. 20 And while we recognize -- Councilmember Lozada is not using anybody. We recognize, I recognize as an individual elected and the Caucus recognizes that we have a responsibility to both populations because both of them are equally as important and deserve quality of life. It is why we are doing things the way we are doing it. And fortunately, for the people of the 7th Council District, we now have a Mayor and an Administration that recognizes that they matter. I will not apologize for the work that I do as an individual elected or that we do as a Caucus or that we do as a Special Committee because unless you were not paying attention, this information does not lie. This is real information. This is real work. This is real quality-of-life changing work. And I will challenge you, the Savage Sisters or anybody else to tell us that we need to change or stop the work that we're doing because my community does not deserve better. Now, I will say for the last time Councilmember Lozada did not have anything to do with the removal of anyone in the Kensington community. What I did do was hold people accountable because that is what I was elected to do. I was elected to speak for my community residents. And if that means that I have to fight against harm reductionists or anybody that doesn't agree that my community deserves better, I will continue to do that unapologetically. I invited all of you to the table. I will continue to invite you to the table even if we disagree. But I will not, I will not allow people to continue to come in front of this Committee or any other Committee on City Council and say that the work that we are doing to better improve the quality of life in Kensington needs to stop or change because one group of people think we need to do it the way they've been doing it for a long time, and that data has showed it has failed. The 7th Council District deserves better. The children in my community deserve better. The people who are living in substance abuse disorder deserve better. This shows you that we have worked together to ensure that all of those communities deserve better. Thank you so much for being with us today and I invite you to continue to come back. Councilmember, do you have anything you'd like to add?

No. 21 I think you said it all.

Thank you. This concludes the business before the Special Committee on Kensington today. Thank you all very much for your attendance. We look forward to continuing the work with you and improving the quality of life of the community of Kensington. Thank you so much everybody. Have a good day. (Special Committee on Kensington concluded at 1:25 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL