More than 900 people have signed an online petition urging the city to pause a plan to operate a drug treatment center on Girard Avenue in Fairmount.
“The lack of community engagement in this process is alarming,” wrote the petition’s author, Bradley Meyer. “We believe that our voices should be heard before such significant decisions are made about our neighborhood’s future.”
The petition comes in response to a report in the Inquirer earlier this month that the city was working to open a “triage center” for drug users experiencing homelessness on a state-owned property at 2100 W. Girard, which already houses a city-run homeless shelter.
Mayor Cherelle Parker has proposed spending $100 million to create a network of triage centers as the city seeks to shut down Kensington’s decades-old open-air drug market, while providing drug treatment and housing for hundreds of users experiencing homelessness in the neighborhood.
It’s unclear, however, whether the Fairmount facility is already being used to treat drug users from Kensington, whether it’s one of the proposed triage centers, and how it fits into the larger plan to address drug use and trafficking.
Here’s what we know about the facility and how we got here.
A scramble to find more treatment beds
The state-owned property on Girard Avenue was previously Lankenau Hospital from 1884 to 1953 and then served as a state hospital for tuberculosis patients. In 1977, the city-run Philadelphia Nursing Home moved in, and in 1994 a nonprofit organization took over its management for the city.
The city closed the nursing home in 2022, citing empty beds, financial losses, and the cost of needed building upgrades.
Recently, the nonprofit Resources for Human Development has run its Fernwood emergency shelter there for single men referred by the Office of Homeless Services. The organization’s website does not specifically mention providing drug treatment at Fernwood, although RHD does offer addiction recovery services in Montgomery County, at a supportive housing facility in Camden, New Jersey, and other locations.
Philadelphia’s need for more beds in shelters that offer recovery care became evident after Parker took office in January. She vowed in her 100-day action plan to develop a strategy “to permanently shut down open-air drug markets, including in Kensington.”
Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel subsequently said drug users would be offered shelter and treatment, rather than being immediately arrested and jailed. But Managing Director Adam Thiel acknowledged last month that there aren’t enough beds in the city to accommodate and treat potentially hundreds of addicted people for extended periods, saying the “continuum of care literally doesn’t exist,” per the Inquirer.
Providers also say long-term care programs often don’t have the capacity to treat people who have serious health problems, like slow-healing wounds caused by use of the animal tranquilizer xylazine, and aren’t set up to quickly enroll and treat people who will immediately experience withdrawal without access to opioids or medication.
Existing services at an existing facility?
Details of what the city is doing at the Fairmount site are sparse. The Inquirer cited anonymous sources who said it was already operating as a “low-barrier” shelter, which typically means residents do not have to be drug-free or meet certain other requirements to stay there, and would offer wound care.
The paper said it would be staffed by Project HOME, which helps homeless people, and Prevention Point, which provides harm-reduction assistance to drug users and other services in Kensington. Both organizations declined to comment.
City officials partially confirmed the report, saying that the shelter was already offering drug treatment and that more beds had been added in April. But a spokesperson for Parker said it should be called a “wellness” center rather than a “triage” center, and suggested it was separate from the mayor’s triage proposal.
“The city is providing existing services at an existing, city-run facility in Fairmount, as part of the continuing effort to build out a comprehensive system of long-term care, treatment and housing for those individuals suffering from addictions to substances, mental health challenges, and those experiencing homelessness as well,” spokesperson Joe Grace told Billy Penn this week.
The administration appears to still be in an early stage of planning that system. In early May it put out a bid request for consultants to design “triage, treatment, and recovery facilities for individuals with histories of substance use disorder and homelessness,” saying the city “has identified several locations for consideration.”
In addition, City Council is still negotiating the city’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year that starts in July, and has yet to approve borrowing the $100 million to set up the triage centers.
“We will” provide more info, administration says
Whether or not the Fairmount program is an official triage center, the report drew angry responses from surprised area residents and elected officials.
Councilmember Jeffery Young, who represents the neighborhood, criticized the Parker administration for a lack of transparency and for failing to notify him about its plans for the site.
“I do not support a triage center at this location without undergoing a thorough review and discussion with the community to address potential implications,” he said during a council meeting last week. “It is unacceptable to undertake such a significant project without consulting the communities and stakeholders who will be most affected.”
Young has introduced a bill to block the city from renewing or starting a lease at the site.
Grace said the administration is considering the needs of both the people using the shelter and of residents, and will give out more details on its plan — at some point.
The administration is “trying to boldly address an urgent, complex, and multifaceted health, housing, and law enforcement crisis in a way that has never been done before, at this scale. A crisis involving individual human beings, families, and neighborhoods — all at once. In addition, we must do so while protecting the privacy, safety, and security of patients, care facilities, and surrounding communities,” he said.
“We have been very clear that we will provide Council and impacted communities with more detailed information during the ongoing budget process — and we will,” Grace said.
From worries to outright opposition
The Change.org petition launched on May 7 echoes Young’s concerns, calling for a halt to the plan until the city engages with the community. Integrating drug treatment facilities into communities “often requires careful planning and open dialogue with residents,” petition author Bradley Meyer wrote.
“Such centers can have both positive and negative impacts on communities. While they provide essential services to those in need, they can also lead to increased crime and potential safety concerns if not properly managed,” he wrote.
The United Francisville Civic Association was planning to discuss the facility at a meeting on May 8, and the Fairmount Civic Association was planning a meeting on it on May 14, he said.
While Meyer and other petition signers said they were asking for an opportunity to give input, some were against the facility outright.
“It could cause safety issues for residents, including children who attend Bache-Martin [School] and/or play at the (very popular) playground at Brown and 22nd St,” signer Angela Campbell wrote. “It will negatively impact property values in Fairmount and Francisville (the latter of which is still an up-and-coming neighborhood). There is the very real likelihood that crime will increase — as it has in the affected areas of Kensington.”
“For these reasons, I strongly oppose Mayor Parker’s plan to use the Fairmount nursing home for the proposed plan,” she wrote.
