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“There are no beds. There’s plenty of money, but no beds,” said Frank Clark, who’s been sleeping on the street in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood for some time.
Clark was among hundreds of people experiencing homelessness on Kensington Avenue when WHYY News visited in early October.
“Look at me right now,” he said, pointing at his arm, which he’d just bloodied through repeated attempts to locate an uncollapsed vein.
“This costs money,” he said of his addiction. “This costs so much more money than giving me a place to sleep.”
He’d spent hours trying to find a spot in a treatment program, he said. So far, he’d been unsuccessful.
“I can’t do it anymore. I’m done,” he said.
The neighborhood has long struggled with open drug use and homelessness. The city has sponsored several iterations of cleanup initiatives. The latest, titled the “One Philly Kensington Blitz” by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration, has brought increased police enforcement and cleaner streets to the Kensington corridor, drawing praise from some people who work in the neighborhood. But outreach workers and people experiencing homelessness say the effort is doing little to address their most pressing needs: access to addiction treatment, medical care and a safe place to sleep.
