the wound care providers at Prevention Point are really seen as experts in the field and leaders
nationally. They have trained other providers in the city and elsewhere. In many ways, they've
kind of created a blueprint for treatment of wounds. And I also want to point out that we
have been doing wound care for much longer than even entering this building, and that the wound
care team has really changed the approach of wound care to meet the needs in the community.
Sylvana, can you expand upon that? When you say meet the needs of the community,
You know, can you distinguish what sort of wound care is needed in the community as opposed to, say, wound care my, you know, seven-year-old would need from falling, you know, in the backyard?
So years ago in our older facility, you know, 15, 20, 25 years ago, we did see wounds that in the city and nationally wounds that resulted in a lot of limb loss over time with with ongoing wound care and cleaning and treatment and follow up of wounds.
So years ago in our older facility.
We had really seen that diminish. In the last 10 years with fentanyl in Philadelphia and now xylazine, we're seeing very different wounds that do not heal properly. We're seeing wounds that arise even if people have not had an impact in that area of the wound.
And so they require much longer visits, more ongoing treatment and cleaning and follow-up.
And I do want to add, too, that not only is that a very specific type of care, but the follow-up services that we have been providing for years to people,
where people can come back and keep getting additional support and treatment and cleaning
of that wound so that it heals is something that saves the healthcare system a lot of money.
Some of our patients are not necessarily going into other medical facilities or into hospital
facilities, and when they do, it is sometimes quite late.
So to have this service actually does provide a financial benefit to the city, to the medical institutions that surround us, and to public health in general.
What about the SANA clinic? Can you explain to the board what that is?
The SANA clinic is our HIV primary care clinic.
We did have a partnership with a federally qualified health center on site to provide care here.
And the health department, knowing that we provided medical case management and navigation to HIV care for a very long time, asked us to operate this clinic on site, which we did.
We brought on Dr. Meisner, a national expert who is affiliated also with Penn Medicine, a hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
And that speaks to what we said before, you know, one of the expansions of our medical care and providers was related to really trying to get experts in the field to provide the highest quality of care.
I will also point out that the sauna clinic is not just medical care, and that's something to be noted with all of our medical services.
People are not just getting a patient visit after checking in, getting medication or prescription or testing, lab work, and then leaving.
They are seeing a case manager.
So if someone has housing needs or they have mental health issues or they have legal issues, they are getting support.
When they get stable in their HIV care or their hepatitis C or their substance use and are now in recovery, they are getting support also from a recovery specialist.
But that case manager is also asking, what else do you need?
We have a food bank for people who are in the sauna clinic as well, and we support people also with their substance use treatment and engagement with other services through the sauna clinic and the other clinics.
How many days a week are medical services provided at the property?
Medical services are provided one day through Friday, though Friday is a bit of a shorter day for some care.
What are the hours?
Um, basically 830 to 430. People check in, they can check in first thing in the morning
and come throughout the day. And how many medical providers
at any one given time will be providing services at the property?
There are days where we have one provider, the most number of providers has been three,
And that has been because of specialization for two to three different types of services.
Why 2913 to 15 Kensington Ave for the location?
Why did Prevention Point decide to lease and provide services here in particular?
We had looked at another facility that was further north.
um when we got uh talked to about this facility we saw that this was further north than when we
where we were on lehigh and palthorpe but we saw a great need and um this is an area that does not
and this is an area that does not have, and certainly when we moved in, did not have
have and certainly
medical care immediately nearby. It, as you know, has a high overdose rate. It has
a large unsheltered population, and so this area has allowed us to provide a range of services
that were very well needed in the community. Do you provide safe injection sites?
Absolutely not. We do not do methadone. We do buprenorphine and other services that are able to be provided through medical care. And there is no inpatient treatment at this location either.
Okay. In response to any community concerns, are there any actions that you've taken to improve the property in general?
um we we have certainly with the landlord's help made a lot of improvements physical improvements
to the building um the with the landlord's help we have made physical improvements to the street
all of the sidewalks um abutting the building and the next street were redone a few years ago
as well as the front. We have done community cleanups. We've been doing that for years,
but this year in particular, the last 15 or so months, we have really stepped up
community cleanups. We have six days a week of up to three, an average of three hours a day
of staff and volunteers who are actively going out and cleaning the immediate area,
but also up and down Kensington Avenue, Allegheny. We might get calls or requests for support.
There's a crew that is actively cleaning McPherson Square, helping in some other programs.
We have a community engagement team that not only attends events and meetings, but does cleanups in
the area, partners with the library, with some after-school programs, with school programs,
helps direct food and other resources to community members. We've done sponsorship of
some youth programs and other community requests. We have a meal program every month that gives out
food bags to food for a week for a family of four to 75 families. We deliver them directly
to the community. The community engagement team goes out and does that. And we are first
responders in the area. What about security? So we did have a regular security crew through till
8 p.m. until the fall. We had a funding cut that was not specific to us. It was to several
providers that included a cut to our security budget. We did move some resources to be able to
hire a security specialist who's very well skilled in security and security management
and crisis de-escalation who started in mid-October, so fairly recently. And we have a team of staff
that are managing our doors and doing crisis de-escalation. And it is a range of staff,
So it includes people that are very skilled at crisis de-escalation and at managing people who might be having a mental health or other emergency.
And lastly, I just want to go into it because what we're talking about is specific to the medical services.
And, you know, you're in a unique position here in that we know firsthand what impact having the medical services at the property would be.
can you speak to what changes there would be in the effect if you were forced to decrease
the number of medical providers to just one? What would the result be?
So we might potentially have more lines or waiting of people needing medical care. We would not
necessarily have some of the specialties that we can offer that, again, save taxpayers
health care dollars, save hospital visits.
You know, we do partner with hospitals and take people as needed, but there would be
a fairly significant impact.
You would have much more crowding at the area hospital and CRC potentially.
potentially. And we might have to use other portions of our space for enhanced services
and we might have to use
that also might be marked routed. And again, no change, regardless of what happens here,
no changes to all of the other services that are being provided at the property, correct?
Correct. And, you know, finally, we have certainly tried to be good neighbors.
Um, we, this, this impact, if not approved would really affect the type of care that we can provide and the, the, the quality and specialty of care and, you know, providing more care through additional providers also supports more people for treatment and other medical care and reduces a lot of the health concerns in the area.
Thank you. I have no further questions for Ms. Modella and less members of the board.
Why don't we go into your next witness?
Thanks. And I will just reserve the right to call Ms. Modella again for any rebuttal.
Does any board member have any questions right now?
I have a quick question. What is the age? What is the minimum age for clients?
or is there a minimum age?
Sylvana, are you still there?
I believe she was cut off,
but board member Graham,
I'll get the answer to that question before it ends.
I do not believe there is a minimum age though.
And the other question is,
are there lines outside?
Is there enough space for folks to wait
or are there lines waiting outside normally?
So there is enough space to wait.
I was going to have Ms. Woodcock go through the floor plans, but you will see this, we have a waiting, this is a waiting room right when you walk in to the left, and then when you turn to the right are where the offices are.
So there is sufficient room to get people off the street and to wait.
There's also the community room in the basement and many areas inside.
And that is one of the goals to get people off the street and not, you know, congregating outside.
But so I'd like to at this time call Janice Woodcock.
I'm going to have to speak.
Hi, could you please state your name and spell for the court stenographer?
Yes, my name is Janice Woodcock.
I'm an architect and I prepared to study for this case.
Just for the record, could you spell your name for the court stenographer?
Certainly. J-A-N-I-C-E-W-O-O-D-C-O-C-K.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
I'll just have some brief wider to go through Ms. Woodcock's qualifications.
Ms. Woodcock, can you just state your educational background, please?
Sure. I have a master of architecture and I'm a registered architect in Pennsylvania.
a certificate of urban design from the University of Washington.
I also served with city for four years and two of them as the executive director of the city, Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
And have you testified before as an expert before the Philadelphia's Honor Board of Authority?
Yes, I have.
Okay. I'd like to offer Ms. Woodcock as an expert in the fields of architecture and land planning.
i'll accept her qualifications for that for architectural land planning
um did you uh prepare uh the report that uh is listed uh shown here um special exception
analysis for prevention point headquarters yes i did okay uh and uh what did you do to
familiarize yourself with the property? I visited the site. I interviewed the executive director.
I toured the Kensington corridor over a dozen times at different times a day,
and I did research in the history of the neighborhood and the planning policies for
the city to come to my conclusions. And you'd agree that personal services and sole medical
office, sole practitioner medical offices are both uses allowed by Wright at the property?
Yes, they are.
But group medical does require a special exception, correct?
That's correct.
And can you, for the board, just advise what is the standard for special exception and
how does this differ from a variance?
Well, variance required, the burden of proof is on the applicant to show that they don't
have a negative impact.
but for a special exception
But for a special exception, it's a little less strict.
it's a little less strict
The opponent needs to show that there's no impact to public safety, health, or welfare.
So there's a two-part piece.
The applicant does have to demonstrate that they don't have typical negative impacts on the neighborhood.
But then also the opponent has to show that this use harms the neighborhood.
So, the first requirement is that as the applicant, we can establish that these specific negative effects that I'm highlighting here would not be caused as a result of the proposed use more so than they would from any other average use, correct?
Correct.
Okay. And here, can you explain, you know, the circles that you made here? What does this show?
Sure. The orange circle is showing all of the services offered by Prevention Point at their site, 2315 Kensington Avenue, whereas the red circle inside is a subset of those uses, the wound care, HIV, PrEP clinic, the stabilization treatment and engagement program, all those things that Selenia described are just a part of the activities that go on in the building.
Now, you said you did some research into the historical context and the neighborhood in general. Can you just briefly summarize your findings for the board?
Briefly. Yes, this is a former working class neighborhood that has been known as a drug sales open air market for dozens of years and is known nationally for that.
I tried to provide a little bit of background about that so that the reader could understand that while we're supposed to be showing sort of typical land use issues, that this is a very unique neighborhood with special problems that are certainly being responded to by the medical and social service activities that you find on the street.
Now, we may hear or, you know, we have heard in some meetings that individuals have, I guess, pointed the finger, maybe a prevention point for causing negative impacts in the neighborhood.
And you personally researched that and investigated those claims, correct?
I did.
Okay. And you looked at a nine-block radius, is that correct?
It's a nine-block strip, and prevention point is about in the middle of that nine blocks.
Okay. And so we see here, so this was an analysis you did of the land use in the street, and you were looking at vacancies. Is that right?
Well, there were two things. I think that if we were trying to figure out what would be a negative impact in a neighborhood like this, when it's such a unique neighborhood, the two things that come to mind are vacant buildings, which attract nuisances, and also groups of people that are visibly not well and perhaps using drugs that congregate in front of these vacant buildings.
So what I wanted to do was to look at those two factors to see if the block around the prevention point clinic was any different or worse, any worse than the rest of the blocks.
So if you'd like, I can summarize my findings in both of those categories.
First, the vacant buildings, and then secondly, whether or not there were, I would call them idling people.
Sure, if you can, briefly.
So the degree of vacancy across the nine blocks is remarkably consistent, ranging between 35% of the structures to 43%, I think it's 42% or 43%.
The prevention point block is at 37% vacant, which is the average for the entire corridor.
So in this case, there is no more vacancy or less vacancy than the average rest of the blocks, and it's slightly better than the worst blocks.
And the next question goes to Board Member Graham's question just about idling persons and individuals who are potentially congregating in and around the clinic.
Can you speak to that?
Yes. So as I said, I went to the site over a dozen times, different times a day, to catalog not only the location of groups of people that were not walking but standing still or sitting.
and to see if there were patterns of use that were the same across all the blocks
and whether there might be concentrations.
And here, what we found of the nine, if nine is the most people
and the most groups that would cause a potential nuisance and one is the best,
that the prevention point block ranks...
that the prevention point block ranks number four.
So it's neither the worst nor the best.
And it's what you would expect in a neighborhood that has sort of a consistent problem
and it's a consistent character.
And lastly, you did a three-block detail.
uh excuse me you you did a comparison uh with the esperanza clinic block and a different clinic
block as well correct if you don't mind if you could just go to the previous slide i just wanted
to show people the method those little dots are people and they're in the color depends on when
when we saw them so that gives you an idea about the concentration of people and then if you go
the next slide now. I can continue. Remember, one of the questions is, does this prevention point
clinic have a worse impact than any other clinic that you would expect in this neighborhood?
So I looked at two other places where there were clinics. Esperanza is very similar, and it does
provide the social services to the surrounding neighborhood. And it had, if you were going from
ranking from one to nine again, with nine being the most people littering, Esperanzic would
rank seven. But there are other factors in this case, because they are also near the L. So there
were other, perhaps other reasons and not the clinic. And then the second clinic group I looked
at, it was a clinic group of clinics at the beginning of the block at the southernmost end.
And that one was seven, eight, eight out of nine rankings. So both of the other places are less, less of a problem in terms of idling folks than our prevention point clinic, which once again, ranks fourth.
And just to go into the specific negative impacts that we are required to assess in connection with the special exception approval, and I'll just briefly go through your findings here.