Thank you, Council President. A couple things. Prisons, we have a new Prisons Commissioner, so I didn't want to burden the new Commissioner with too much, but Prisons based on the flowchart will fall under you all, specifically the Managing Director's Office. What should we be doing to ensure some of the issues that we're 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. seeing at the Prison gets addressed? What is your vision? Do you believe the current advisory board is capable of providing meaningful oversight? And based on the lawsuit that we've seen, the court-appointed independent monitors, that tactic might not be working. So how long do we expect these current problems to exist? What are we doing as it relates to the independent monitors? Do you feel like the advisory board is an effective way to do oversight, and the overall plan to improve safety with our Prisons? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Council President, I appreciate you asking the question. Clearly Prisons and improving conditions in our prisons is a priority for Mayor Parker, which is why we've hired a new Commissioner, Commissioner Resnick. He starts on April 22nd, and he certainly has coming in -- I will frame it as a positive -- the benefit of a lot of information 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. around things that need to be done. And I want to be very clear too. The folks who are working in our Philadelphia Department of Prisons are incredibly dedicated. They are providing a 24/7/365 service. They are understaffed and underresourced. There are items throughout this Five Year Plan, capital items, to both improve conditions and improve security at our Prisons facilities. There are items in here to provide Commissioner Resnick with the resources that he is going to need to build a team, to provide professional development, to restore the morale, and of course ultimately to restore the staffing complement of PDP. Right now they have, I think, still have 50 candidates who are in to be correctional officers. We need folks. These are very important jobs. And I'll repeat for folks who are watching, phila.gov/jobs. We are hiring for 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. correctional officers. So we're looking at frankly every aspect of the Prisons operation, with the benefit of these different resources that you've talked about, and we're going to let Commissioner Resnick get in --
The advisory? DIRECTOR THIEL: -- start getting it done. I can't -- I think we're going to let -- we will let Commissioner Resnick assess the advisory board and assess the staff. Now, to be clear, that's again -- we're not going to spend -- we are already taking action, so we are not waiting for Commissioner Resnick to come, which is why you see so many different investments in PDP here. We are working with Local 159, negotiating with them on their contract. I think you saw during the announcement of Commissioner Resnick, you saw 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. incredibly enthusiastic support from Local 159 there in the room. I think everybody is excited about Commissioner Resnick coming on board, and we're going to give him a minute, and just a minute, to take stock and move forward, and we've given him the resources in this budget, thanks to the Mayor, to start getting things done and changing conditions.
Somebody who has maybe been around a little while then, if you can give us something in writing on that advisory board, what is the Mayor's position as it relates to the advisory board and how effective do we think the board is or isn't. Clearly my staff have been talking about possible legislation to look at different type of oversight. So we want to know where the Mayor's opinion is, know what's working, what's not working as we craft that legislation throughout the course of the year. I want to change directions. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Under the Managing Director's Office, you have the Office of Children and Families, and I have to give Ms. Vanessa a huge shout-out. She's amazing, pleasure to work with over the last couple years advocating and dealing with young people. You have a concept that you're introducing called the Sports Fund. I'm assuming that's going to come under the Managing Director's Office, correct? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, if it's in the Office of Children and Families, it is located in the Managing Director's Office, yes.
I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking. Is it going to be under the Office of Children and Families? Is it going to be under the Managing Director's Office? DIRECTOR THIEL: I think we're currently conceiving that as being in the Office of Children and Families.
Awesome. That would be great. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I just want to put a shameless plug in for myself and other members of Council. We've been advocating for years for the City to create a Sports Fund. We actually used the Cultural Fund as an example, looking at what we do with the Cultural Fund for arts and culture, which is an amazing thing. We've been advocating for the same thing for sports. I could hear Councilmember Jones's speeches in my head about track and field. I know the Council President was on the Appropriations Committee last year where he fought for money for South Philly organizations. I've advocated for Philly Legendary Hoops Month. For the first time ever, we gave money to Pop Warner Football. So I'm wondering, number one, what is the plan to have Council included in this initiative? And, number two, is it only for young people or is it for adult-based sports? And, number three, with this Sports Fund being in place, 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. will this impact other advocacy efforts and initiatives that we've had in the past to provide City grants and resources to sports-based programming? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Council President, I think working backwards, I think we certainly hope that there will be additional dollars from multiple sources to help support youth sports across the City. As far as the specific configuration and the priorities of that program, I think those are still under development.
So I would want us to know what that is going to consist of before we vote for it. DIRECTOR THIEL: Certainly.
At the end of the day, it could put us in a position where organizations that's been getting funded by the City for years may now be disqualified because we create this Sports Fund, and let's say the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Sports Fund is only for children and you decide that all sports money must go through the Sports Fund and is only for youth-based sports programing. That would eliminate some of other initiatives that we've already put in place that are phenomenal programs and events. The last thing I'll say, because I heard the bell, and I do want to commend Adam Geer. I want to commend Adam, because he's already hit the ground running with some of this stuff, but it's important that we put it on the record. I love the position. I love the work you're doing. We've had a number of high-profile homicides in the City of Philadelphia. This year in 2024 -- and we talk all the time about how insensitive it is to hit the reset button, but as government, that's how we function. I'm sure we -- I know for a fact we had high-profile homicides in the years to come, but looking at this Administration's priority and focus on 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. not just cleaner and greener but a safer Philadelphia, just as I close out -- this is my last thing, Council President -- can you talk to us a little bit about your plan to address people's perception of our city? While we can talk about the data and numbers, they are trending in the right direction. I'm not going to say that the work isn't being done, but the perception, is it reflective of the data? So when we have a high-profile homicide, especially when it's caught on camera, we have no arrest, we have nothing, it doesn't -- those incidents do not help the perception issues that we have and they don't match the data and the direction that the City is trending in. So what is your plan and what is your vision to attack this perception problem? Because at the end of the day, we have a lot coming up in the next couple years and we want people not just 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. in Philadelphia but people who visit Philadelphia to know that our city is safe. DIRECTOR GEER: Thank you for that question, Councilmember. It is much appreciated, because when we go out sometimes to these scenes and we drive through these communities, and we know this from the data, right, the individuals who are committing these crimes are a drop in the bucket compared to the beautiful, hard-working, lovely Philadelphians that we see on our way to these scenes, right? They are the small, small, small fraction of who we are as Philadelphia. To answer your question, I know the department, the Police Department, is going to be very intentional about their rebranding efforts. They've brought someone on to help translate some of that on their side, but as a city, I think we're already doing some of that work, right? We've talked about this. We've 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. talked about Council's leadership.
I want to be clear, because I gave you credit for doing the work. I'm not questioning the work on this one, right? This is a perception thing. So I don't -- I know firsthand based on meetings, based on budget hearings, based on data the work is being done. I'm not questioning the work, but if you talk to people who are not necessarily in Philadelphia who are thinking about coming here, if you attended our meeting last night, what did they tell us last night, Council President? The elders feel trapped in their neighborhood, right? I heard somebody say we need a program for elders because they feel trapped in their neighborhood. Now, I'm not saying that these elders are literally trapped, but clearly there's a perception out there right now that's not reflective of the work. So I'm more concerned about the perception 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. than the actual work, because I know that you're doing the work. I've seen it firsthand. DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Council President, we really appreciate it and agree 100 percent. I mean, I know people from a lot of different places, as do you, and there's this mismatch between perception and reality. One of our very first meetings, I think it was on like day two with the Mayor and our cabinet, our entire cabinet, was with all of the convention and business entities, the chamber, Visit Philly, CVB, all of those folks to essentially attack this problem that you're talking about head on. We know the Mayor hates -- I'm not even going to say that term. That is part of safer, cleaner, and greener. So I think we have heard so much from so many people as we move around the City. We've heard -- we were at another meeting recently with the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Mayor where someone who had been planning to move their business said because of you, Mayor Parker, and your energy, enthusiasm, and positivity and optimism, I decided to keep my business here and reinvest. We've heard people -- I was down in South Philly, a woman say, I was moving to Florida, but now thanks to Mayor Parker -- because we are seeing it. People are seeing it. They're seeing it, touching, feeling it. It's going to take more of that. It's going to take more of our consistent execution of this vision and strategy across all of our departments, Commerce, huge, Alba Martinez. So I think it's going to take all of us, and I am thankful that we have the best cheerleader that anybody could in Mayor Parker, because we got -- we have a lot going on, a lot coming, and as she says, companies coming. So we're enthusiastic about this and closing that 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. gap between perception and reality.
That's it, Member, but I do want to concur. I think the energy of our former colleague, right, sets that tone. Coming outside after a homicide with all the key partners, standing up, saying we're not taking it anymore and enough is enough, I think that also plays a role in the psyche of the people that somebody cares, it's a new day. So I do concur those sentiments of our Mayor stepping up to the plate and saying we're going to grab this issue and address it firmly. I want to acknowledge Councilmember Curtis Jones.
Thank you, Mr. President. While these robust hearings were going on, I was listening, multi-tasking in my office. Two quick things. One, since the Kensington Caucus 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. came on board, I've seen progress. The Mayor was out there at Comly like three times, making the center of the universe the Kensington issue ground zero. So for that, as an honorary member of the Kensington Caucus, I am thankful that finally after all of these Administrations we're looking at Kensington as a priority. So I'm thankful for that. But, number two, by way of perception, I was up with a group of law enforcement officers up in -- right? You couldn't go any further and not be in Bucks County than we were, and these are very conservative kind of regional prosecutors, and they were clapping for our Mayor, saying finally there's somebody who can balance criminal justice reform with public safety, that they don't have to be "or," they can be "and." So I want us to -- I know it's 100 days. We like instant grits. We want everything quick, but everything 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. doesn't happen quick and sometimes it takes a while for you to take these inheritances from other Administrations in order to be able to right the ship. So I just want to -- I agree with Member Thomas. We like what you're doing. We want to keep you in the loop of effectiveness, and I just want to say thank you for the perception that it is getting better. Like actually whether you talk to those law enforcement people or people sitting on the porch in my district, there's a sense that -- and I don't want to call her Auntie Cherelle, but she's like the stern aunt that comes in the house, boy, pull your pants up, this is not how we do it here, kind of thing, and it is said with love but firmness, and it's a combination of both. That's all I had to say, Mr. President.
The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Thank you. I had to leave to speak to a college class. They were very interested in hearing about these budget testimonies. Two questions that are not connected at all. One is about conforming contracts, and I know you talked about it a little bit in the beginning of your time here, but we've just heard complaint after complaint about how long it takes to conform contracts and also to get payments to people, so everyone from a court-appointed counsel to even shelters who testified yesterday. When I spoke to them in February, I took a note that it was taking 54 days to conform a contract. We've heard it from the larger non-profits that are helping to fund the smaller ones and each individual ones as well. Is it all going through you? 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Is it all going through one person or one entity? And how can we fix it? How is that moving? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, I appreciate the question. Most of that actually doesn't come through the Managing Director's Office at all. So most of that is done by other parts of City government. We can certainly have folks in Procurement, Law and other parts of City government circle back with you on some of that. The parts that we do have equities in are sometimes mitigating risks, sometimes devoting additional capacity. My sense from working here for a little while is those agencies I just mentioned are underresourced, like many others. They have vacancies. I see a lot of hard-working people everywhere in City government trying to get this stuff done, and at the same time, we have these challenges and we're not doing what any of us want to do, particularly the folks 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. where this is their job, their 100 percent job. We're not doing as well as we would all like. So I think this is also part of our initiatives to make business operate more smoothly. It's tough to do business with the City if you're not getting paid. The Mayor announced yesterday a lot of great things that are going to be happening for businesses. I think part of it will be navigating through existing City processes, because some of this in my experience, there's a lot of back and forth when you're trying to do this inside and outside City government. So that's not necessarily in our lane to get that done. We are in certain cases I mentioned with our Capital Program Office providing resources from the Managing Director's Office to other agencies like Law to give them additional capacity to work on our projects, your projects, to work on capital projects and other things. So 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we're looking at that, how this work gets done. Rest assured, the Mayor is keenly interested in this. Our colleagues in the Mayor's Office, our big three, are working very hard on this, our CAO. A lot of people understand these challenges. We know we need to fix it. We are a piece of that too, but a relatively small piece.
Okay. I'll figure out how to do the follow-up on that one. And then the second question was about arts and culture. I am upset to see that I believe there's a $2 million cut in the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy and that there's not going to be any more of the Illuminating the Arts grants. Arts helps with community development, youth engagement, cleaning and greening, public safety. Tell me it's not true, and 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. would love to know like why that would happen. The arts is one of the things, especially for our youth on the ground, that is keeping them engaged and making Philadelphia beautiful, and it's an economic engine. DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Arts and Culture is no longer in the Managing Director's Office. We have a new Director for that, and again part of the Mayor's commitment -- because the Mayor absolutely agrees that arts and culture is important. In fact, she believes it's so important that our new Director reports directly to the Mayor. So we can have them circle back to explain exactly what the City's investment in that is and how we as a city are going to continue to do that work, albeit organized in a slightly different way.
Okay. I should ask another question that's not in your department so I can strike out. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. DIRECTOR THIEL: Well, to be clear, Councilmember, I'm not punting. We will make sure that we will get somebody to get you an answer back.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. Very briefly, and thank you, Councilmember Landau, for bringing up that issue. I just want to assure that we have the Office of Creative Economy come before this Committee. I'm not sure if with the restructuring they fit the $5 million budget requirement, but if they don't, we would love them to come before the Committee to answer questions that Councilmember Landau just presented as well as other questions related to the arts and culture space. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilmember Landau.
You're welcome. Before we wrap up, we have our last two to wrap this round up and break. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jeffery Young and then we have Councilmember Nicholas O'Rourke, and then that's the wrap.
Thank you, Mr. President. My questions are along the lines of special events. We just had WrestleMania here in the City, which I think did wonders for our city, but we have events all the time on the Parkway that -- being the new Councilmember, that was one of the first things that folks kind of bombarded me with, is Parkway 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. events. There's a lot of seniors that live around the Parkway in some senior facilities who need access to just the amenities that the Parkway and the things around the Parkway offer, but during special events, they just cannot get there. And so I was wondering if there is ways where we can temporarily change like street directions or something during these events to allow for access for certain seniors to get in and around the communities, because a lot of one-way streets are there and streets are blocked off, so they have no access. They're kind of landlocked in the facilities and aren't able to move around their communities when there are special events. So could you speak to, I guess, what the City's plan is during special events on the Parkway and how we can, I guess, mitigate those issues that those community members, those seniors have 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. that live around the Parkway area? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Council President, appreciate the question and understand the concerns. It's always a balancing act to be able to have these major events, with more coming, while recognizing that the community still needs to be able to get where they're going and be able to have their quality of life. So a lot of that coordination comes out of our Office of Special Events and Jazelle Jones, also our City Representative, they do some of that, our Office of Emergency Management, Streets. Rest assured, there is a very elaborate and detailed planning process for all of these events to try to balance safety, security, and access all the time, and we know that sometimes that can be -- sometimes it is very difficult to do both of those things. I think to -- we actually do some of that. We do sometimes close a 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. street but provide access for residents, sometimes change the way streets run. If there are specifics, we'd be happy to take specific examples of events and buildings and folks that didn't necessarily have access and get that into our planning stream for these upcoming events, some of which -- and I think it's an important point as well. The scale and scope -- we are used to big events. The scale and scope of some of the events that we have coming in 2026 are going to harken back to the Papal visit as maybe the last biggest thing, the DNC that we did in 2016. We are already doing a lot of planning for 2026 working back through today. So we'd be happy to take specific examples from your office so we can do what we can to work that into the planning.
Thank you. Just for the record, I want to note that I used to be Jazelle's intern in the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Managing Director's Office many moons ago, so I'm very familiar with the process with special events. So thank you for that.
Thank you, Mr. Young. And wrapping up, the Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilman Young, for recognizing WrestleMania in the great City of Philadelphia. I just had two quick questions, and I thank Council President for the time. Starting in November of 2022, Philadelphia welcomed its first bus of individuals seeking asylum. Since then, we have received 71 buses sent from Texas and 2,900 people seeking asylum. Proud of Philadelphia's commitment to being and maintaining itself as a welcoming city, which has looked like meeting folks with 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. open arms, helping them find stability in Philly or assisting them in getting to their final destination. In light of the upcoming presidential election, it's important that we get clear about how we will continue to fund and support this critical work. It looks like we spent 5.3 million last year for migrant bussing and to operate the Welcome Center, but it does not look like there are any appropriated funds for this work in FY25. That being said, if the practice of bussing migrants to Philadelphia by some wayward governors in this union reemerges, is the City prepared to receive them with this current budget? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, Council President, I think the short answer to that is, it depends. Obviously we don't control that flow. We don't control the mode or the timing or the number of folks. That is completely 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. somewhere else, and as you might imagine, we don't have a lot of influence on that, the other end of that pipeline. So our team, and it's an amazing team that does that, our Office of Immigrant Affairs, our OEM, a lot of other partners, we are able to handle the flow as it stands right now. If that changes significantly, then the good news is we know how to do this. We did it with Operation Allies Welcome, which is something a lot of folks forget about or believe that was somebody else's job. The reality was Operation Allies Welcome was done largely by the City of Philadelphia and Department of Defense partners and others. So we know how to scale, and we will have to find the resources to do that. We will have to have our colleagues in Finance do that. And there have recently been some federal funding streams that we may be able to tap for some of that work depending on how much 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. it ramps up.
To that, is funding continuing for Pennsylvania Immigrant Unity Family Project, which helps immigrants with legal defense? Do you know about that? DIRECTOR THIEL: I don't. We can certainly come back to you with an answer to that.
Please do. DIRECTOR THIEL: About that specific program.
Thank you very, very much. And I had a question for OEM. We have certainly seen the busy and broad nature of emergency management, especially as natural disasters become more extreme and human-made disasters illuminate the limits of our current systems. I should say I believe you were the one that handled the snow removal in all of that in the City about a week or 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. two into this Administration; is that correct? Commendations to you for that work. OEM has responded to a number of unprecedented crises over the last few years, and federal funds and several grant-funded initiatives have allowed OEM to operate with agility. Can you describe the expected impacts due to the loss of this funding? DIRECTOR THIEL: Councilmember, working backwards, a huge interagency team, those are the ones who actually did the work of the snow removal. So I want to give a shout-out. So many different agencies. I'm not going to list them in the interest of time. All I basically did was say maybe we should have a call. So I appreciate that. I also want to appreciate Tiffany Thurman, our Mayor's Chief of Staff, who really helped with some of that. And I also -- I want to be clear that the last time I was almost killed in 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the line of duty was because I was standing too close to a building that used to be in Kensington, and only thanks to some of our real professionals in the Philadelphia Fire Department did I survive. So we pulled back just in time that I was not -- the Fire Commissioner should not be that close to a building. So that was my fault. The Office of Emergency Management, so as a former Director, temporarily three-year Director of OEM, very important agency. They do -- to your point, are often right there when unexpected things happen, whatever those might be, a phone call that we're going to start having folks from Afghanistan showing up in 27 to 30 hours. OEM does have access to funding resources, federal funding resources, regional grants. We are not going to let OEM fail, because they have never let us fail. So we are going to do what needs to be done to ensure that all that critical work 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. continues regardless of where those dollars are coming from. Whether they're coming from the General Fund in one place or another place in the General Fund, we need to maintain the capacity and capability we have in OEM. One of the challenges we have, and we're looking at this holistically across City government, is also retention. There's no better place in the country arguably to learn emergency management than here in Philadelphia. That's a good thing and the other thing at the same time. We've been tested. Those folks have risen to the occasion. Most of them can go write their ticket somewhere else. We all understand that. We know that's true of so many different City employees. So we're looking at compensation, recruitment, and retention out of our CAO and our Office of Human Resources. So we're going to -- we're not -- I am not concerned about losing 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. our capabilities in OEM with what's in the budget. We got it.
Okay. Thank you very much. And thank you, Council President.
Thank you. I want to thank both of you for your testimony. As a body, we look forward to continuing working in partnership with the Administration as we move the City of Philadelphia forward. So thank you. And this hearing stands in recess until 2:00 p.m. - - - (Recess from 1:02 p.m. until 2:10 p.m.) - - -
This hearing will now come to order. Ms. Loughead, will you please call the next witness for public 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. testimony.
Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender. (Witnesses approached witness table.)
We got the Northeast caucus over there taking care of business. I like that. Ms. Hudson, just please state your title for the record and please begin your testimony.
Good afternoon, Council President and City Council. Keisha Hudson, Chief Defender of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Council President Johnson, members of City Council, again, I'm the Chief Defender of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, and I am pleased today to provide testimony on the Fiscal 2025 Operating Budget for the Defender Association of Philadelphia. We are requesting a total budget increase of 15 million. The 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. details about how we would use these resources is laid out in our comprehensive written testimony, accompanied by a short five-page slide presentation. Today I'm just going to spend a few moments giving you an overview of our budget request and give you the opportunity to ask any questions you have of me about our work. The majority of my requested budget increase will be directed to our continued efforts to interrupt and dismantle what we call the womb-to-prison pipeline, a long-term investment that aligns with the Mayor's vision to make Philadelphia the safest big city in America. As we all know, Philadelphia's child welfare system is particularly aggressive, removing predominantly Black and brown children from their home at or near the highest rate of any big city in the country. We are looking to add to our dependency and youth delinquency 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. practice teams by bringing on two experienced education attorneys and two housing navigators to serve our youth, particularly our older youth, both again in the dependency and delinquency system. We have to ensure that our older youth involved in these systems are able to navigate the challenging processes in both the education and housing systems. According to our partners at the Education Law Center, dependency and justice-involved students need strong advocates because they are among the most educationally underserved of all student populations. They are more likely to change schools, be placed in inappropriate classes, and fail to receive the special education and other services that they need. Our youth in the juvenile justice system are more likely to have unmet special education needs and a history of truancy. As a result of multiple school changes and placement in 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. on-ground schools, students who are justice involved often fall through the cracks. Our education lawyers will be critical for representing youth in the dependency system, representing youth in expulsion proceedings, which have become increasingly common. Many children are now receiving permanent expulsion from school and many are mandated to be out of school for an entire school year, undermining their ability to graduate. Education lawyers are also important for the legal representation of youth in special education due process proceedings and will be important to coordinate with placement facilities to ensure that our children coming back from placement are getting the appropriate education services. We are also asking for two housing navigators. The children and youth who remain longest in foster care or whose last placement was a group setting are the least likely to ever 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. become part of a permanent family. This lack of support leads to a greater likelihood of homelessness. The housing navigators will be responsible for helping our youth access county services and community resources. Protecting our older youth clients with educational and housing supports will ease their transition into adulthood, but provide -- and also provide meaningful connections to education, housing, and community that will reduce their chances of being arrested. What do we mean when we say the womb-to-prison pipeline? Twenty-four percent of dependent children experience a juvenile arrest. We represent those children in the Delinquency Practice Unit, which last year we represented 1,463 children. This unit currently has only ten lawyers and five social workers.
We know with our current staffing levels that we are unable to meet the needs of 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. our clients, which is why we are asking for resources to increase our staff and social workers. The lion's share of the budget request would provide funding to hire five attorneys and social workers, and 8 so that every youth that we represent in 9 that delinquency practice will have the 10 benefit of an interdisciplinary legal 11 team, which will include an attorney, a 12 social worker, and administrative staff. 13 Our experience with our 14 children entering the delinquency system 15 tells us that they all need the 16 assistance of a social worker, and 17 currently we are not staffed to provide 18 them with one. 19 With this continued investment, 20 we can connect our young people with the 21 support that they need to avoid future 22 entanglement with the delinquency system 23 and avoid future involvement with the 24 adult criminal justice system. This 25 additional staff will also help us build 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. our capacity to provide representation and social services to youth as diversionary opportunities for them to expand. I was pleased last year when I was listening to Commissioner Bethel's testimony that he has expressed a deep commitment to diverting our youth as early as possible, at the point of police contact or using our juvenile access center, and we would very much appreciate coordinating with the City and other stakeholders, including the Police and the DAO, to divert our youth, but we will need increased capacity to represent our youth clients in that realm. It will also lower other caseloads for our attorneys. In every unit at the Defender's Association, currently our attorneys are carrying more than twice the recommended caseload. This increased investment will also support efforts to safely reduce the PJJSC population by creating release 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. plans for children housed there and will better support our young people returning home from placement or detention. As Council is aware, there is overcrowding at the PJJSC. It has presented ongoing challenges for the facility and for our young clients housed there. While stakeholders have been working to reduce the daily detention population, it has consistently remained at or above capacity. Despite efforts to reduce the population, it remains a racial justice crisis. Let me repeat. It is a racial justice crisis that is impacting young Black males, who make up 85 percent of our young people who are housed in the detention center. Every month middle school children routinely populate the JJSC and there are children as young as 11 or 12 in our detention center every month. Recently the majority of the children in detention are those who are 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. waiting resolution of their case. Around 113 children are being held pre-adjudication. They have not yet had a trial or any proceeding in Family Court. Investing in additional attorneys and social workers for our office will also enable us to work to secure release for these pre-adjudication children while they await resolution of their case. The second, I would say, priority of our budget ask has to go towards staff recruitment and retention initiatives. Following the COVID-19 crisis, our organization, like many City agencies, had vacancies to fill. In 2020 and 2021, we lost 98 defenders, and the majority of those defenders were seasoned, experienced trial attorneys. We are also hopeful that we can increase the diversity of our attorneys. We want our attorneys to reflect the client population that we represent. We are still at a time in American history where when we try to recruit Black and 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. brown attorneys to our organization, we're often told that our salary, starting at $64,000, is simply not enough for them to pay their student loans and often time for them to support their families.
I have heard from countless prospective candidates that, Ms. Hudson, I am the first person in my family to go to college, I'm the first person in my family to go to law school, I have responsibilities. And so we have a challenge recruiting and retaining Black and brown attorneys. To remain competitive with other City agencies, we want to invest in increasing our starting salary. As of today, our office, public defenders start at $64,000. The District Attorney's Office attorneys start at $70,000. The Law Department solicitors start at $72,000. All three agencies, DAO Krasner, Solicitor Garcia, and myself, have met and discussed the challenge of 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. recruitment and retention, and we are aligned in an ask for starting salaries to be increased to $85,000 a year. This makes us competitive with New Jersey where the starting salary is $75,000 a year and at least for public defenders where the starting salary in Baltimore is $85,000 a year. Solicitor Garcia will tell you that that starting salary is far and below what we are seeing in other public defender and solicitor and prosecutor agencies around the country. We simply cannot recruit and retain and sustain our attorney class on any diversity initiatives unless we get an increase in our salary. We do have a unionized attorney staff. They're unionized under the UAW. We have a collective bargaining agreement, and of course any increase to our starting salary means that the salary has to be increased throughout our contract per our contract. In conclusion, investing in the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Defender Association is not just an investment in providing essential constitutionally mandated legal counsel to people that are entangled in our justice system, but it's funding an effective community touch point that supports people and their need to succeed socially, educationally, and economically. Every time this body discusses people in the criminal justice system, every time we discuss bringing people into the criminal justice system, every time we have a new law, every time we have a new initiative, like the Kensington initiative, we also have to address funding, not just for the other stakeholders but for the Defender Association that represents over 70 percent of the people in the City of Philadelphia. Investing in the Defenders also ensures that we retain and recruit the people committed to serving the public 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. good. We do appreciate the support you've given us over the years. Council has been incredibly supportive in our ability to increase staffing and support for our Child Advocacy Unit, but we do need additional resources. And now I will, again, rest on my testimony and our short slide presentation and take any questions that Council might have. Thank you.
Thank you, Keisha. As always, thank you for your hard work and your dedication and taking a comprehensive approach in supporting those who need legal representation. And, you know, obviously I'm a great fan of our great judiciary defense system that we have here in the good old United States of America. So you keep up the good work.
The 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. defense never rests.
A couple questions that I have. Obviously some key things that you hit in terms of making sure that on a staffing level as a city we remain competitive to other cities, which is a no-brainer. I think this particular body has a value on making sure that we're being supportive of the Defender Association, similar to how we support the First Judicial District, similar to how we support our District Attorney's Office. And so we welcome your presentation, and I know my Chairman of Public Safety has been a strong advocate of supporting and increasing your budget, similar to myself. So a lot of things you talked about are very, very refreshing in terms of making sure people have strong representation. A couple questions that I had. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. In terms of the collaboration of the Public Defender's Association, do you work in partnership or is there any synergy with the Department of Human Services, DHS, because you do a lot of work with juveniles, as well as First Judicial District? And I know they also have the Juvenile Unit with the juvenile probation officers in Family Court. What's the role that you and your team play from a synergy standpoint while you're supporting our young people? And the other part of my question is, what is the attorney-to-client ratio for adults as well as juveniles?
So to answer your first question, we represent the children who are coming into both the delinquency and dependency system, and we serve a very, very unique role. On the dependency system, I laud Commissioner Ali's vision of reducing the amount of children that are 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. removed from homes and placed outside of the family setting, in foster care or group placements. She's committed to addressing the racial inequity of that issue and the trauma that our children endure when they are removed from their families. The majority of our children are removed due to poverty and neglect. Two percent of our clients are actually -- that we represent are subject to physical or sexual abuse. The vast majority we are talking about poverty underlying the fact that they are being removed. And so we are aligned with Commissioner Ali. We get funding through the Department of Human Services. For example, in one front, to do our mobile services visits with our clients who are placed throughout the City and state, so we're able to have our social workers and our attorneys visit our clients in different placements, both on dependency 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and delinquency side. If a client is placed in a foster home in a particular area that's outside the City, our social workers and attorneys can visit and maintain the relationship with that child, and we get funding through DHS to do that. We also, again, on the delinquency side, when our clients are placed as far away throughout the state, we have clients in Texas, get funding through the City, again, to be able to visit our clients in placement. We would love to be able to have more alignment in terms of what happens once the child comes into the system. Again, the Defender Association is not involved pre-removal. We do not see that world, so we don't know what's happening prior to the child being removed. We, of course, will get that information after we take on representation of the child, but we would love to be more coordinated in 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. pre-removal, because we do think that that will help in family reunification down the road. We have a lot of work to do in the City of Philadelphia in terms of understanding what drives the removal of children. Substance abuse is of course part of the decision to remove a child, but we also need to focus on the fact that our clients do heal from substance abuse addiction, and efforts should be made to support them maintaining contact with their children and eventually when they become sober and/or overcome their addiction, have a plan to be able to get their children placed back with them. So we do collaborate, I would say, both in the pre-removal and post-removal. Both the parents' lawyers, who are represented by Community Legal Services, the Child Dependency Unit, our unit, the child advocates who represent the children, the DHS social workers that involve the CUAs, all of the other City 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. agencies that come into bear would need to, I think, increase our collaboration with the outlook of what is in the best interest of the child. And in our mind, the best interest of the child is to do what we can to reunify. On the delinquency side, I will quickly say our attorneys are carrying significant caseload. Our attorneys right now in our Juvenile Unit are carrying in excess of 75 to 80 youth clients that they're representing at any one time. Again, as I said --
Per attorney. We represented 1,400 children last year. We have ten attorneys. And I have to also include the fact that the leadership of those units are carrying caseloads themselves, so they are not having the time to manage their staff. They're in court every single day with a full client caseload. So that's why we're asking for 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. an increase in our attorney and social work staff.
And last question before I relax my time for my members, talk about the role that your social workers play in terms of addressing the mental health and trauma that juveniles and adults, clients, may be impacted by just on your basic interacting with them as public defense counsel.
I also say every chance I can get, so I'll say it here again today, that public defenders are the most knowledgeable about what it will take to achieve public safety. And I say that in all seriousness, because we have the beauty of attorney-client privilege and we can have clients who trust us, and they do trust us and will tell us things that they may not have told their parents or loved ones. And I can tell you for every client we represent, I can see through 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. looking at their history what we call missed interventions, whether that's a failure of the family surveillance system, whether that's a failure of community or education, simply by their location, the neighborhood they live in, that that child, if they were involved in the dependency system, I can see why they ended up coming through the both juvenile and adult system. So we know our clients well and we know what solutions work. Right now our social workers, we have 29 social workers for our adult population, and last year we represented 34,000 adults. We represented 4,000 children; we represented 34,000 adults. We have 29 social workers. We are not able to have any substantive touch points with our clients, so we do an incredible job of referring our clients, connecting them to services, but as you have heard from the agencies that have testified, we don't have enough treatment options for our 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. clients, whether that's outpatient or inpatient. The wait list is long. If you sit in a courtroom any day of the week, you will see the PD, the DA, and the judge asking, well, when can we get this client into placement or when can we get this client a bed for treatment. When they do the treatment, time is not long enough to address their need, and when they are released from treatment, there are no social service supports around housing or employment to help them maintain their sobriety or to help them from reverting back to their addiction. So I am asking for an increase in social workers not just for the youth unit, some of the social workers will 21 be, for example, in response to the 22 Kensington plan, because we want to be 23 able to make sure that our clients are 24 getting the services they need. We know 25 that they need longer term treatment and 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. we know what happens that leads to their relapse, and, that is, they come back out, there's no housing, there's no 5 continuation of support, and before long, we see them coming back through the system again.
What's your role right now with the Kensington strategy plan?
We have not been a part of the plan. We have been invited to two meetings. Those meetings were at the invitation of DAO Krasner.
Okay. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Mark Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Keisha, always for your support and collaboration and attending those meetings with DA Krasner, who we requested you to be there from those office. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
During the previous budget, there was an allocation and money for AMP Court. AMP Court was something that we supported immensely with your help and also DA Krasner. At that time, we were supposed to initiate it two days a week and then eventually go to five days a week. We still haven't been able to do that and there's some challenges why that has been, but during your time as a defender, do you see the use of courts like this to be able to get folks the help that they need so that we would see less multiple offenses or recidivism from these folks, and what other -- we also talked about Community Court that we don't have, right, as an opportunity for diversionary options instead of charges that will be filed and/or incarceration. Do you see both AMP Court and/or Community Court as possible options to help not only reduce the caseloads from a lot of the defenders 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. but also help the people who are the offenders?
Before I answer your question, I do have Sarah Allen here, the First Assistant at the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Sarah Allen is our office expert on both AMP and actually staffed Community Court. I will say overall, yes. You know that our office is ready today without any additional investment to move up AMP from the two days a week to five days a week, but there are additional supports that are needed through that diversion program, and there is a role for Community Courts. But I would like to invite Sarah to talk about really what it looks like now and what we may need to be able to bring more clients through that diversionary program, which again does work.
Thank you. (Witness approached witness 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. table.)
Thank you, Councilman Squilla. So we are currently staffing AMP Court two days a week. We were able to staff that expansion without any additional services. The partnerships that we have created through court such as Community Court and AMP Court are integral to the success of the program. PHMC has been incredibly supportive in continuing to staff it with a full complement of social workers, who are able to make realtime connections in the courtroom and do follow-up. So the Defender remains committed to staffing any problem-solving courts that we can create with the partners. We just have to figure out how to expand in a world where PAD exists. PAD did not exist in the time that we had Community Court. So anything that we can do to be supportive of problem-solving courts I think are a solution to some of 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the problems that are experienced in communities like Kensington.
Well, thank you for that, because I think it's important to hear from -- when you see things of enforcement or you see things that deal with offenders, what is our best way as a city to deal with those offenders in a way that doesn't hurt them long term, but also understand that there are consequences or at least a court process that may be a part of that offender's choice, not his choice particularly, but that there is a consequence at some point so that they know what we can do and give other opportunities. Now, if there's somebody who goes through, and the same thing with AMP and Community Court, you have like 30, 40 offenses of the same person, that's a whole different story, but the goal is that there's always people who make mistakes at times when they're young and 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. sometimes not thinking about the consequences. There's other folks who will be habitual offenders, but I think our goal is to weed out those folks and to make sure that people who make the mistakes at a young age or even not at a young age but make a mistake and get caught up in the system, that they don't get tied up or then set back by the system. So any advice that you have even with AMP as this rolls out and is hopefully being used more, but also if PAD somehow circumvents Community Court or is there room for a different process besides PAD?
I think the diversion courts that have been set up are very successful because of how rapidly the intervention occurs. AMP is generally three to five days after arrest, so they don't have time to sort of get lost in the system again. So having the supports in place to have 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. rapid intervention I think is the key. The other thing that I have found to be successful in these problem-solving courts is having consistency in the staffing, both attorneys, social workers, and the judge consistent in the process. Because when you do have that person who falls off the wagon and comes back in, when everyone recognizes them when they walk through the doors and calls them out by name, it makes a huge impact. So strong supports from the judiciary, strong supports from organizations like PHMC, and strong supports from the treatment providers in the community are what make the problem-solving courts successful.
And I agree, and they all need to be funded, right. So that's part of the challenge. I see you're bringing big guns in like Mr. Gillison here to also support your request. But I just want to say thank 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you, and I do support the salaries, the starting salary increase, because I think it really is important. We as a city always said that we might make a little less money but yet got great benefits, you have pension, but some of those things aren't the same anymore, right? So the salaries are a key to attracting people, but not only attracting them, but you have to be able to retain them. We don't want to get people to come in, we don't want to get them trained and then they go somewhere else, right? So I think we really need to look at that as part of the budget request in making sure that we support that wholeheartedly moving forward. So thank you.
Thank you, Councilman. Quick question. Good afternoon.
Quick question. Can you give us some sense of what the increase you're asking for will do for those ratios for your clients?
So there is going to be a report that will be forthcoming from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently we are staffed at Defender Association, we are staffed at 250 attorneys. That report is going to say that as of today, the Defender Association is understaffed by 100 lawyers to keep up with recommended caseload and workload. So that's for future budget seasons, and I will share that report once it is released. It is a statewide report. It's going through each public defender agencies in the state to talk about their staffing and whether the staffing can accommodate the current caseload level. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. So our ability to increase and our focus on our youth delinquency practice unit, because if we get five more attorneys and we add to that complement, we can bring cases down from the 75 or so that they are now to 50 or so cases, which again sounds like a lot, but every year we have to be able to start to make progress. And so it would be remarkable to have five experienced -- we're not actually -- for the youth practice units, we're not looking for young attorneys right out of law school. We're looking for seasoned attorneys to come in who can handle a heavier caseload than a junior attorney who is still learning the practice.
So real quick, I just want to ask this question. So if we're saying for every five, it will reduce the caseload from 75 to 50, but the need is 100. You're saying we're understaffed by 100?
Across the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. organization for our caseload, the study will say the Defender Association is understaffed by 100 lawyers.
Is there a plan to get to that hundred in the near future?
We'll come back every year, and I always come with a robust ask. I text quite many of you at all hours of the day and night just to remind you of that ask. And so we'll come back each year again with our data to show we need increased resources.
Five for the youth practice. Part of the budget ask will also be our fall class, which is coming on board in September, and that's 21 -- 20 criminal attorneys and six attorneys 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. for the Dependency Unit. So we will make a significant improvement on both the dependency and criminal adult unit with that class of 26.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And hello, Chief. How are you?
Thank you for being here. Your testimony clearly states that you have not been involved in -- and I think you mentioned earlier -- any conversations about the triage and wellness centers and that the anticipated needs of the neighborhood will quickly overwhelm the current referral system, which is alarming to our office, for obvious reasons. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I appreciate you trying to plan ahead, though, and make budget requests to expand your capacity for the new MDO initiatives. Since these requests are not premised on actual conversations that you've had with the MDO's Office, and I'm sure that you're greatly anticipating having those, could you let us know what experience or information you're drawing on to make the 1.1 million request for the Kensington plan, please?
I did have the opportunity to meet with a member of Councilmember Lozada's staff, and there was -- my understanding from that conversation that if we have a triage and wellness center, that if people are going to be arrested, the law calls for arraignment within 12 to 24 hours. And so if someone -- and the question was asked of the MDO this morning. If someone rejects treatment and there is an underlying basis for an arrest and charge, and those sometimes are going to 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. be legal questions that can be challenged in court, but if at that moment whether it's noon in the afternoon or 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon, if someone is going to say, I don't want treatment, charge me, send me to State Road, then you need a public defender within to hours for 9 that arraignment and you need a DA and 10 you need a judge. 11 And so my understanding is, if 12 arrest is on the table, then we have to 13 be part of the conversation, because it's 14 going to be our staff that has to respond 15 to whichever location, and that 16 1.1 million would just be to staff one 17 location. If we're talking two or three 18 or four locations to the City, then it's 19 1.1 million times two or three or four. 20 It's for six lawyers. 21 Currently we staff arraignment court 24 22 hours a day, seven days a week, but we 23 would need additional attorneys to staff 24 arraignment. If we are talking just one night a week or we are talking seven 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. nights a week, then that 1.1 million will change, or are we talking one place or five places, then that 1.1 million would change. So it's a safe estimate based on what our understanding is. We don't know how many centers we're talking about. We don't know what our clients -- what options they may have. I would implore this body to really think carefully about State Road being a part of that solution. We have serious concerns there. But what happens to that client who wants to go forward and say, put me in the jail and I'm going to try my case or I was wrongfully arrested or wrongfully searched and want to challenge that case, that is their right.
Thank you. Seeing that decarcerating the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Services Center is a top line goal for this coming 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. year, interestingly enough, at the same time that a federal monitor is saying that we need to decarcerate our jails, which I feel strongly about myself. Your testimony notes that over 60 percent of the youth inside the Juvenile Justice Center are awaiting trial, 60 percent, and that pre-adjudication youth is a target group for decarceration efforts. I'm curious to know what the key metrics for and steps toward accomplishing that goal are, what's the process for discerning which young people are awaiting trial -- the people that are awaiting trial can go home, how will that effort scale up. Can you speak to that?
So every day we get a report that will show what we call alternative to detention, and those alternatives to detention may say there are 30 monitors available today, house arrest monitors available today. There are various community centers, evening reporting centers where a child who is 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. waiting their adjudication hearing can report to, and of course Juvenile Probation can then monitor and ensure that they're going to make their way to court, and those alternatives to detention on any day can be utilized to drastically reduce the pre-adjudication population. Our youth, for example, last year, percent of our youth clients 12 were arrested for carrying guns. This 13 year it's 14 percent. It's going down, 14 but unfortunately I think the 15 stakeholders, not including the Defender 16 Association but stakeholders including 17 the courts, may think that the safer 18 place for Black boys, particularly at 19 this time, is in detention or for them to 20 be detained and not released to their 21 families or back to their communities or 22 to utilize those alternatives to 23 detention. Similarly, our youth, there are services available. Again, all partners 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. have to come to the table and work to connect our pre-adjudication youth to those services. We have to be willing to surround them with resources and support. If we have a social worker assigned to every single child, we can ensure that that happens, but right now with five social workers, we are focused on the youth that really are truly, truly, truly immeshed in the system and in need of interventions. But every child should have a social worker. I think we would better facilitate that pre-adjudication and alleviate the detention. Really quickly, on State Road we propose that today we could identify 500 people that should not be on State Road and we would be able to close an entire facility and you could reallocate the guards from that facility or the detention center to alleviate the staffing problems. I think currently the Prison System is understaffed by 790 correctional officers, and that would 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. greatly alleviate the staffing crisis, particularly with the independent monitor report and the federal litigation where the City may be held in contempt if staffing is not brought up to standards. We think today we could identify 500 people you could safely send home. And these are not people carrying guns. These are not people committing violence. Bail -- they're pretrial, most of them, and bail is a function of poverty, and they're awaiting court. They have a presumption of innocence, and you could alleviate that staffing crisis if all stakeholders come together, and we look forward to working with Commissioner Resnick.
Well, 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. thank you. Thank you for the questioning. Thank you for the response. That's, you know, very good news, in my opinion, that if we were able to do that, we would be able to send some folks home who really shouldn't be there but are there simply for the fact that they cannot afford what the bail is, what the bail has been called for, and in many cases, I think that it's probably not a large sum of money to most. And so I thank you for bringing that to our attention. One of the other things I wanted to ask you, though, is around the Juvenile Justice Center and something that came to my attention not too long ago, I would say maybe the end of last year or a few months before that, but the idea that young folks who are being held awaiting trial are not given any sort of credit, time served for their waiting time, and they could be held for months, 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. for years. What is your agency's role in addressing that particular matter?
There's a reason we want to increase services. That is true, that time does not count. The clients who are in Texas asked to go because they knew the quicker they got to out-of-state placement, at least the time would count. And by law, the JJSC under the Juvenile Act, kids have to be able to get services during placement, and the JJSC is not equipped to be able to provide those services. I think if we invested some funding to ensure that both education services and other therapeutic services are brought into play at the JJSC, then we can address that issue through litigation, through the courts, bring it up to the upper courts to say the JJSC actually is a facility that offers treatment and rehabilitation services while the children are perhaps waiting for longer placement. But as it stands 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. right now, our children are not getting educated. They're being held for sometimes up to a year, and none of that counts. The other reason we're asking for an education lawyer is what happens when they either get out of the JJSC with a pre-adjudication and they have 30 or 60 or 90 days of displaced education, what happens when they try to go back to a school district. In Philadelphia, it's not pretty what happens to those youth. They fall through the cracks, they become truant, and then if they're of age, they stop going.
And what happens to our children from longer term placements with their education. But right now our children are sitting, the ones who -- and we represent all the children, including on any given day six to nine children who are just 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. there on dependency -- for dependency reasons. But the children that we represent on a variety of charges, right, are not getting education or any services at the moment.
Well, you know, I can only say that it's outrageous and the work that you all are doing is so very important. I'm happy to fully support your budget request, and I just think that we just can't keep saying that we want change, we want things to be better, we want our young people to have opportunities and not to address this in any way, shape or form, which is what's been happening for a very long time.
Absolutely. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Landau.
I want to start by echoing the words of our Madam Chair right now, that the work of the Defender Association is so essential to what we're doing in Philadelphia. And what I love, what I've been hearing from you for the years I've known you and through now is how much you and your team are trying to break the cycles and really make sure that if we can intervene now -- look, the folks who come to you have some interaction with the criminal justice system, right? And by the time they get to you, that's already happening, but if you do the right interventions now, that you can break these cycles. So as a former legal services lawyer, I fully applaud the request for the social workers. I know what it's like where you fix a legal problem and it's a Band-Aid on one piece of a larger puzzle often that is broken, and the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. social workers are the saving grace that can help with the supports and have the time and the energy to put towards the whole. So I love this. I had a couple of quick questions for you about -- we already talked about the salaries. We got the social workers. Can you talk a little bit more about the full role of the social workers in the support of the attorneys and how -- I like this concept -- let me back up for a second. You're trying to decrease caseloads for the attorneys. That is essential. You can't keep somebody in this ring for so long, because they'll burn out. But how do you also -- what's the role of the social workers to support them and also making sure the social workers don't burn out?
So right now for both other youth and adult clients, it's a referral model that comes from the attorneys, and there's a really 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. unpleasant word that we use in public defense called triage. And when you have 75 or 85 clients, human beings that you're representing, you as the attorney, you're making the determination of which client to prioritize for that referral, and you're going to go with the client who may be presenting active psychological and psychiatric symptoms or the client who is deeply, deeply substance addicted, but we're not going to be referring and we can't and our social workers cannot handle the volume of every client who has that problem. Right now we cannot prioritize clients who are homeless for helping them find housing services. We do not prioritize clients for helping them find a job. We just -- we do triage. It's like an emergency room where we have to decide who to prioritize as we're preparing for court in a day or two days or in a week, and sometimes our attorneys get their cases the day before depending 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. on where our clients are in the system. At most, maybe two weeks before for the more serious cases. So we're talking our attorneys who are incredible doing a lot of work in a very short amount of time and making a very, very quick call, well, this is a client I'm going to refer. In terms of for our social workers, they're amazing. They come to our office. The starting salary for a social worker is $54,000. These are social workers often with MSWs. They are a portion of our population that tells us, I'm not going to be here long because this is not sustainable. And so we do what we can to also support them in terms of salaries and benefits, but also a lot of training, a lot of support. We just had Social Work Month in March where, again, we want to emphasize to them that we're invested in their well-being and supporting them in the work. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I have to mention our social workers in the Child Advocacy Unit who go to where our clients are at. These are not pretty places in the City of Philadelphia, but they go to our clients' homes. They build those relationships. They meet our clients where they're at, and sometimes it's early in the morning and sometimes it's late at night, but we ensure, again, that to the extent -- and they do it alone, because we're not staffed for people to go in pairs. So to the extent that we can, we support them in that work. But it is really, really important work, and we are dedicated to supporting the social workers on our team.
And just one thing that you haven't said that I know, so I want to say it out loud, is that when you have a caseload that is that high on both the attorney and social worker level, they're doing their prep work at night and early in the morning. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. It is impossible to do it during the day. So it's many, many hours.
Where are you recruiting your new attorneys from? I know that you've been working very hard on increasing the diversity of your attorney staff. Where are you doing that?
We recruit primarily from the area law schools. The majority of our clients come through the clinical programs that we have at Villanova, Temple, Penn, and Drexel, and we also recruit from Rutgers. In order for us to really build the diversity, we have started a partnership with Howard. And so we've had several attorneys in the last two classes come from Howard University, as well as other HBCUs around the country. Mr. Gillison sitting here has done incredible work, along with several other members of our team, Melissa 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Singleton to name one, who goes out far often into the HBCUs around the country to try to build those relationships. I will say again, you know, it's helpful to be able to entice someone to come to Philadelphia, particularly a diverse candidate, if we can offer a salary that is competitive with other public defender agencies. As we all know, I'm a broken record with this. We do not get the City pension. And so our ability to be able to sell "come to Philly," you know, we have to be able to have a comparable starting salary to other agencies.
And one last quick question if she's not going to cut me off is, do I remember correctly too that you have to pay all your own bills?
We pay -- the things that we pay for include rent and real estate taxes. We also pay for all of our IT infrastructure. And just by 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. comparison, the Office of Information and Technology spends about $4,200 per City employee. We do not get any support from OIT. So every single piece of paper, paper clip, stapler, laptop, all of that is paid out of our base budget. And so in those two areas, rent, technology and of course the pension, are things that we are not getting funding from the City to support.
Thank you, Commissioner Landau. City Council Jones might fight you for that.
Thank you, Councilwoman. A couple of questions really quickly, particularly around young folks. As you talked a moment ago about the idea 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. of them being sort of in this pipeline and what happens, they're sitting, they're waiting, and they may be aged out and then next thing you know they're up at SCI Phoenix because they've gone through the process and then they're sent to SCI Phoenix. One of the proposals I think from the Commonwealth is to build a juvenile facility at SCI Phoenix, which I find incredibly disturbing, because it sort of gives -- it sends a few messages, this is where you're going to be anyway, this is where you're going in the future, this is your future. And so I'm just wondering -- I know it's not directly something that you all have advocated against, but I'm just wondering, I would like to hear your thoughts on that matter.
So we do represent youth, a significant amount of youth, who are what we call direct file juveniles. They are charged as adults, and we have 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. to go through a process called decertification where they may be decertified back to Family Court. And these are the children that you read about in the news. I would submit here that every one of our child clients is worthy of an investment and a trauma-informed investment, but right now we would need to make a significant investment in the facilities that are in Philadelphia or as close to Philadelphia as possible. The facilities throughout PA will not say it directly, but they don't want Philadelphia children and they don't want Philadelphia children because they're Black. And so -- and they're staffed by almost predominantly all white staff members. So the experience of our youth there, which is why so many of these placements were closed, was deplorable, and many members of this body know about that treatment.
So we need to make the investment to build facilities and places where my client who is convicted of a car jacking or my client who is convicted of a gun offense is going to be placed, but can we emphasize placing them closer to home with people who perhaps look like them and/or are trained to be able to address their needs. And right now I do agree that the facility on State Road is, I think, from a trauma perspective, is not optimal, but it's closer than Texas for that population.
We can at least see them more often and their families can see them more often, but it's not the solution that we would advocate for.
Got you. Got you. No City pension and no OIT support.
What does 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. this investment do to address either of those issues, if at all?
So the last of the slide presentation I believe are our infrastructure ask. This budget cycle is $685,000, and that would include making sure everyone has a laptop and a desktop and subscription to evidence.com, which is $185,000. That's the way discovery come to us. And so that would be remarkable to get that support from OIT. So that line item ask is 685,000 of the million. 15
Your role is enshrined in our constitution. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
That's right. So given that, why is there a disparity between the DAO's Office and you?
There is -- there's an expert at NYU who has done a study that shows that the United States currently is investing $6 billion in public defense agencies, but the actual investment needs to be billion. So we 14 are not alone when you look at public 15 defender offices throughout the state and 16 throughout the country. We are typically 17 underfunded and underresourced and are 18 out of parity with the District 19 Attorney's Office. And I will dare say 20 it's because of who we represent. 21 This body has been bold and very supportive of the Defender's Association of the clients that we represent and has been supportive of our budget asks, but we do still at the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. Defender Association, we have some way to go, and that is no different from every other public defense agency in this nation.
So I think Philadelphia should take the lead and ensure that you don't have to keep begging every --
-- year. But I also wanted to ask the MacArthur grant funding was zeroed out for positions in the Defender's Office but maintained in the City in other programs. What is that about? Did we read this right, that there was a MacArthur grant that was funding some positions in your office?
Yes. And I'm actually going to turn that over to Sarah Allen, who was integral in getting and in the working group for the MacArthur grant. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Yeah. We still have, I believe -- I believe we still have four positions that are MacArthur grant funded, our bail advocate program, which I believe the study showed was the only MacArthur initiative that reduced racial disparities. We have continued to use MacArthur funds to staff those positions.
Okay. And when you speak about social workers, do you also have room for behavioral therapists or mental health care in a more focused manner than just social workers in your budget?
We do have a budget for if we want to bring on experts, but that, again, given the budget are for cases where we may need to have our client evaluated, for example, by a psychologist or a neuropsychologist and to run a full battery of neuropsychological testing because we 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. want to show that they are incompetent and they cannot proceed to trial. So we prioritize experts. We don't have anyone inhouse, but we prioritize retaining experts on those types of cases where we know that our client either isn't competent or is so severely mentally ill they will never retain competency and then they may be housed at State Road or they may be housed at Norristown or more likely one of our state facilities.
Do you have a relationship with DBH in terms of providing that without sort of an in-house kind of support? Even if somebody -- it's more of a behavioral therapy in order to level out the cortisol levels in your clients in order for them to make better choices and be much more present in their own defense, and it is very hard to do that when you are under severe stress and you're traumatized. And so I'm thinking of how are DBH, which has a very big budget 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. reimbursed by the federal government and because you're enshrined in our constitution, I believe it's the federal government's duty to make sure you get sufficient support in order for competent defense for anybody in this justice system. So I don't know if you have explored that. So that's one. And two is sort of the diversionary part of your work, which is sort of pretrial, what is your engagement there? What does that look like?
So we have social workers with their master's, social workers who have done clinical hours. Again, the volume of our work is too much for them to be, you know, at this moment assigned to a particular client and/or to have any kind of treatment modality or treatment relationship with that client. That's not -- I think that that would be a utopia for any public defender office, and right now we are so far beyond or below that kind of mechanism or that 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. design. So we have experienced social workers who work with clients who do crisis intervention. They're trained in crisis intervention. And if you go into any mental health courtroom, we have mental health courts at the CJC, and you will see our clients and how they present and you'll watch a public defender, social worker, and our lawyers be able to intervene with our clients and be able to kind of help them and advocate for them in that moment. But right now ensuring that we're working with the courts and the DAO and other stakeholders to make sure they're getting treatments or they're getting their medication, it's appropriate medication, that they're getting treated for that underlying mental illness is something that, again, our social workers and our attorneys do, but as I mentioned before, the need is great for that population as well.
So in 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. other words, your intervention, diversionary intervention, is really after they've already been arrested?
On diversion, we are, again -- if someone who has been arrested, that's when we come in. We don't see the pretrial world.
And the lack of pension, is that a decision that was made by whom?
I don't know, but I will tell you and others on Council will tell you that it has been explored and we have talked to the Managing Director's Office in the past, not the current, and the Law Department, and it's an issue that I don't know that we are going to be able to be part of the City's 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. pension plan, although we would love to be.
It's deeply unfair. Anyway, thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you, Council Lady. The Chair recognizes Councilman Jones.
First of all, I owe you and your organization, 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. your team a thank you. " And until you kind of showed that correlation, it wasn't clear as it is today. Secondly, anything I'm about to say that is wrong, it is Everett Gillison's fault, because he showed me -- I wanted nothing to do with public safety until he kind of trail-blazed his way through CJAB and through the Realtime Crime Center and other things. So what I'm about to say does not reflect the opinions of management, but I was always told that if 17 people agree on everything, 16 of them probably aren't necessary. So I want to gently push back 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. on behalf of Samere Jones of Simpson Street, on behalf of the young man that was years old that was found in a 5 dumpster dead right outside of my 6 district. It was in Jamie Gauthier's 7 district actually. That realizes that 8 some of our shooters are getting younger. 9 A lot of our victims are getting younger, 10 and we have to kind of delineate between 11 a kid that's having a bad day and a bad 12 kid, and we have to kind of -- I've had people come in my office and literally say to me, if you don't get my son arrested, he's going to kill somebody or get killed, and he needs to sit down a minute to collect himself. Studies show that sometimes, you know, the brain isn't fully developed until they're 24, and you were nice enough in our pre-meetings when I raised the stupid remedy, you were kind enough to say, well, maybe you might want to -- you said it diplomatically, so I thank you for that. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. But I'm speaking up for a growing course of parents that are frustrated with what they perceive to be, because crime has gone down, but a sense of juvenile kind of aggression and lawlessness that is occurring. I think if you're going to -- I agree with my colleague that said we need to increase the number of social workers. I'll double down on that and to be able to intervene earlier, because the kid that gets kicked out of class, the kid that gets picked up for curfew, the kid that winds up in truancy, that's the kid who is raising their hands saying, at some point if I don't get some help, I'm going to be a problem. So we agree on that aspect of it. Where I draw the line is for the kid that picks up that gun and for the kid that commits car jacking or the kid -- we need to intervene in a firm parenting way that, look, we're going to sit you down for a few and hopefully while you're in 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. the facility they're building up next to SCI Phoenix -- my colleague and I went up and toured the facility -- that they are getting treatment, that they're getting programs that change them for the better and not being put in gladiator school but being put in a school that helps them see the world differently. And so some of my best friends -- the only person in here that probably has as much street cred is Jimmy Harrity. His graffiti is still up in some neighborhoods that I represent, but some of the guys that went through your system came out to be responsible adults. When we closed Glen Mills, some of those young men that came through that actually wound up being the bus drivers, the civil service workers that are now contributing members of society. So although I support my colleagues that are -- Council has gotten a little more, I want to say, to the left, there you go, I was trying to be -4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. but everybody ain't to the left here. And I don't consider myself hard core even though I get it from you, but I want that balance so that our young people understand there are consequences to your actions, because left unto their own devices, I'm going to too many genazes (ph), too many funerals. And, you know, once a kid gets himself together, yeah, that's good, but that other kid, that other young person, that's forever.
So I just wanted to say for the record -- don't hate me, colleagues, but there is a differing opinion on how we should approach our young people. Parent accountability also is one. And so I said that. You nodded in the appropriate places. You didn't --
Really, really quick response. I would challenge the description. I don't believe that there are bad kids. I have been a public defender for 22 years. I did that penalty work for ten of those years. We 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. do something called mitigation history where we go back three generations in the death penalty world, and you will see the strains and the impact of drug abuse, which is a genetic and goes through the family for generations. There are always two or three generations back of drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, all those. We put a red dot in three generations looking back to why our client is now on death row, and you see those trends three generations back. In public defense, we don't have the luxury of every client saying, well, let's look at your history, but I would want to sit down in a room with those parents, I would want to pull out the adverse childhood experiences form. It's a ten-question form, say mom and dad, fill out the ACEs score. I personally am a seven on the ACEs score, but it's out of ten. And the higher your ACEs score, the more you are likely to be entangled not just in the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. criminal justice system but have poorer health outcomes. And the majority of my clients on death row, I represented the 30 clients, had an eight or above, eight out of ten on that adverse childhood experiences. But not just them; mom, dad, grandmother, great-grandmother did way before they came to us. So when we're talking about interventions, I would say, mom, I know you want your child out of the house, but let's really talk about what's going on with you and what's going on with who is in the home with the child and what can we offer to support and help you get the support you need to better be able to parent. A lot of the family members for our youth particularly were never parented, never given any sort of love or affection, and it was not because their parents couldn't. Their parents didn't know how, because they themselves did not get that example or model of love and 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. affection and they can't parent their children, and that's why we have the children we have. But none of them are bad. They're all wonderful, beautiful children. I believe that, and I believe they're all saveable, and with proper interventions, they are all saveable.
And that's why I'm so glad you're the Defender. There's a certain wiring that comes with that, but I today rise to speak on behalf of the victims' parents. They deserve a voice too. They deserve safety. When I was coming up under -- and I'm going to end on this, Madam Chair -- that if you grew up in Wynnefield -- oh, Mr. President. When you grow up in Wynnefield, there was a family, a family, and I won't name their names, but anybody who grew up in Wynnefield knows the family I speak, that I -- they were -- I don't know if 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. you believe in genetics or environment.
Oh, I do. Genetics is part of it, right? Bipolar disorder, for example, if you have bipolar and you look through the mother's genes, it comes down through the mom generations.
So this family was famous or infamous, right, so much so that when I told my daughter when she started dating, if you bring one of them home, it's a problem. And all I'm saying is that I just want to make sure that as we move more to the left of our thinking and restorative justice, I was all a part of that, that we don't forget the victims of the people that can't be redeemed by this endeavor. They just lost a kid. And so it's on the record. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you. I just think, you know, it 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. takes a comprehensive approach. I'm empathetic to what Councilman Jones -- I understand where he's speaking from, right? Everybody has their own different life's experience. I know his life experience. I know my life experience. In terms of like we both really grew up in the mix of an environment, right, where there could be a variety of different factors of why people take different paths, but being mindful of -- we want to support people comprehensively and also be mindful that -- like my experience is similar. I got friends. One of my guys from St. Gabe's, all-star at Maryland for playing Maryland Eastern Shore, right, and I know we went to the left and said, well, let's close down all these facilities for juveniles, right, because the data shows being not in the house -- this is what they told me in a meeting I had. The data shows not being in a home isn't going to have an impact on if that person rehabilitates, if I'm 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. saying it correctly. However, a lot of times we're asking young people to rehabilitate in an environment, right, where they're surrounded by nothing but death and destruction. And as professionals, right, and most of us probably middle class, right, don't even live in these -- no. I'm just saying just in general, right? So you're asking a person that's living around death and destruction to rehabilitate themselves in an environment that's filled with death and destruction. And peer pressure is real, right? You turn on social media and day in and day out, always see -- if you go on Philly ScoopHall. I'm an elected official. I stay on Philly ScoopHall and I'll see every homicide, every shooting that takes place in the City of Philadelphia. And I just browse through it, right? And our young people are feeding into this every single day, right? And so now it comes from an era 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. where I grew up, it was about getting girls and you had, you know, the guys doing the drugs, but now it's about just guns. They ain't even try to go to party. I don't think they have an after midnight. I don't think they have spaces for them to enjoy themselves. However, with all that being said, right --
Just for the record, Mr. President, I support your budget. We all good.
You got them more money last time in the mid-year transfer.
I was just thinking about the approach, but 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. I'm with comprehensive. Know my story. I'm not ashamed to say my judge name was Reynolds, right? Probation, right? First time gun charge. What do you want to do with your life? Didn't have to -- I had the experience going down Youth Study Center in the van in the evening, right? I know with the cold cheese sandwich and the tea, that experience, right? However, though, however, I would not be the first African American to represent the Second Councilmanic District, I would not be a former State Representative, I would not be a member of City Council as the Council President, I would not be a graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, I will not be a graduate of Mansfield University had I not seen other individuals invest in me. And that's coming from a household that had challenges, but there were other people who saw some things in me that I didn't necessarily see and say, hey, you 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. know what, young man, you can do a little better. You can make better decisions with your life. And so I do understand when you're saying, well, when that mom say come and take my child, well, hold up, let's see what's going on inside the household, why are they acting this way, who are they hanging around. And so I do understand taking that comprehensive approach. And also we deal with a lot of mothers, though. When I look that mom in the face, you not having Christmas or celebrating Ramadan with your son or your daughter and have to look them in the eyeballs and try to figure out how to get them some level of consoling. But that's why we do the hard work. That's why we all wrap our arms around trying to address this issue. I'm going to release my time, because I talked a little bit, but it's a very, very critically important issue. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. It's about saving our young people and making sure that they have an opportunity, such as myself and Curtis Jones, similar background, and Jim. We're not like choir boys growing up, but through the grace of God, we had a chance to like do some things differently on the right path. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
You know, I agree. I too had a lot of issues when I was a young man and got a lot of different chances from different people, the court system, public defender. So I get it, you know, but I also get what Councilman Jones was trying to say, that the harsh reality is that things happen and kids in neighborhoods like mine, they 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. grow up pretty quick. While their age may say that they're a kid, their actions do not. But that being said, why are you asking for a housing navigator, so that I can just get my head around that? And what would they do, and why is your office the place to house them? And then just so we can just get right through, the other question is how have you been working with the community and can you talk about some of the stuff you've been doing in that aspect?
So we're asking for a housing navigator to primarily work with our Dependency Unit, because our older youth who age out of dependency, whether they age out at 18 or 21, the planning for them to transition out of DHS I believe begins 30 days before they have aged out of the system. That planning, that transitional planning, begins in 30 days. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. So what we've started to see is that our dependent youth coming through that system once they age out unfortunately become part of the homeless population, because we need so much longer than 30 days to find someone a rental property. You have to understand, our clients are not as savvy as we may think they should be in terms of navigating a lease, what's in a lease agreement, what their rights are, accessing public benefits or public housing. Our clients do not have the capability to do that, so --
Both navigators will be for our youth practice units to focus on older youth that we represent in those systems to make sure they have housing resources and they have some place to live when they're coming out of both the dependency and delinquency system. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
No. They can be peer in terms of people who have been through the sytem, but it really is to navigate the bureaucracy and to help them understand how to connect to housing resources and get placed into stable housing and access public housing or stabile rental and/or other affordable housing opportunities.
Okay. So these would be people that are in the system, the actual justice system?
They could be. They could be. And we're very, very proud that we are a major employer of people who have been through both the dependency and the youth and adult system, that we are an employer. We believe in that second chance or for many people we would term it first chance to get them employed in our organization, 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. and we do that. So they can be people who know the system already, and actually that would be preferable if they already know how to navigate or they themselves have navigated that system and are a success story for how to work with our clients to get access to those systems.
Okay. And then how have you been working in the community and what can you tell us about your community partners?
Yes. We're very proud to be part of a reentry coalition that meets every other month. It is several dozen community agencies that come to our office. They send representatives to our office to talk about ways that we can help our youth and adults, primarily women. We're seeing a very high population of women, many of them mothers, who need not just housing but also access to childcare resources and training and employment opportunities. And so we partner with 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. groups like Why Not Prosper. We partner with Mothers in Charge. We have partnerships with several organizations, again, where we can say we have clients who need a house and/or a job and/or a mom who needs childcare while she's going through trying to find employment. And so we partner with those organizations. Last year, we did nearly 12,000 expungements. And so we run expungement clinics throughout the year where we work with clients to get their records expunged so that they can get opportunities to those employment and housing, quite frankly.
That's good. Just for the record, I believe in second chances. I believe that when a child first gets into the system, we should do everything that is possible in our power in order to try to guide that child to another path, but sometimes we're going to have to come to the 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. realization that some can't be saved.
And, again, I beg to disagree. I think they can be with the robust investments. We have to be able to be bold, and this body has been, to make those investments. And I do say that I have never had an older client who once they got to 35 and 40 and 45 and 50, that was the same person who did that crime at or or 25. I have zero 12 clients, because we mature, we have 13 remorse, we have regret, we've learned. 14 Our clients have had time to reflect. 15 They've had time to reach out sometimes 16 through victim advocacy work to apologize 17 through restorative justice. 18
Well, 19 that's because they went through the 20 system. 21
And they grew up because of the experiences they had that made them grow up in that 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. system. I'm not saying that, you know, there's -- all I'm saying is there are people that when they pick up a gun and they shoot three, four people, that's no 7 longer a kid. They made an adult decision, and they're going to have to deal with that. Now, they go, they do their time, they come out, that's all -- I'm all for that, helping them once they get to their thing, but the bottom line is if somebody is killing somebody else, they need to be punished for that crime.
I could respond, but I think I've responded enough. I think I've said enough. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you, Councilmember, and thanks for your support.
So I think the spirit is, at least from my perspective, and I see it both ways, you know, we want to err on the side of trying to save as many as possible. 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC.
Right? Because we also recognize, particularly in Black neighborhoods --
-- and brown -- let me finish. There's been a lot of disinvestment for years, and as a result, a lot of children make poor decisions. And then I want to also break down this misnomer that every kid that pulls a trigger comes from a bad family. It's not true. I know we had a different war in South Philadelphia. Some of these kids was in college. They were college kids. Get the best they can from their parents, but decided to get caught up in the street life. We could have this whole conversation at another time, but Member Harrity, anything else you have to say before I wrap up with Councilmember 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. O'Rourke?
Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate that support. Thank you.
I will say one aspect. I think a lot of kids, though, when they engage in these acts, you should be held accountable, but I don't think that all of them that engage in the acts -- and I've seen this from talking to them sometimes after the fact. It shouldn't be after the fact, but the remorse and really recognizing what you have done. And then we have a big drug issue amongst the youth. Most of them pull the trigger on wet, which is embalming fluid. Most of them pull the trigger on Percs and Xanies, and then as soon as they get down the homicide room, they crying and they tell them. They try and cop a deal, because what they just 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. did, they kind of realized they were acting off emotions, which is a whole other conversation. But we continue to look forward working with you. I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember O'Rourke.
Thank you, Council President. And excuse my ignorance. Law is not here to testify today, correct?
Got you. Understood. I'll get to them later then. I just had the one. First of all, I didn't say this earlier. Sixty years of Wawa. So free coffee, I think folks know, today, as of today. I also heard through a text 4/16/24 - WHOLE - BILL 240179, ETC. message from one of my folks that Ben & Jerry's is giving out free cones, for those that are interested. I'm saying all this to say happy 90 years --
Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you. - - - (Applause.) - - -