Sister Cities Park— under construction. Rodin Museum and Gardens — under construction. The Barnes Foundation — under construction. With these three huge projects underway, much of the eastern end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway has been in disarray.
The end results promise to be extraordinary, of course. Meanwhile, however, the Parkway is experiencing unpleasant growing pains. For many, that's best evidenced by the very obvious presence of the homeless, the addicted, and the otherwise down on their luck.
"This has been a constant issue for awhile now, and it flares on and off," says Judi Rogers, executive director of the Parkway Council Foundation, a coalition of education and cultural institutions in and around the Parkway. "Unfortunately, we seem to be in a period where it's flaring."
The city is not unaware of the situation, says Dainette Mintz, director of the Office of Supportive Housing and Deputy Managing Director for Special Needs Housing. "When we knew there was going to be construction at the Barnes site, we worked very hard with Project H.O.M.E. to try and engage as many people as we could to seek shelter or treatment," she says, adding that the majority of the 120 people who clustered along the wall of the Study Center were indeed attended to and placed in shelters.
Project H.O.M.E., a local organization that provides services to persons who experience chronic homelessness, estimates that there are about 4,000 persons who are homeless on any given day in Philadelphia. This includes only those who are in shelters or on the streets. It does not include those who are in transitional housing, low-demand residences, or in substandard/unfit living conditions.
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According to Mintz, a new, and shifting, group of some 125 transients can be found along the Parkway these days (about a third of the total who have been counted in Center City). "People were scattered across several Parkway sites," she says, "and now with all of the construction, they've claimed one place, Aviator Park, so it's become much more obvious."
Indeed, a recent meander through the park on a sunny day revealed about ten apparently homeless men positioned throughout the park, with one lone sandwich-eating office worker sitting in their midst.
The Council's member institutions aren't happy about the situation. "This is our primary cultural boulevard and many institutions have invested millions of dollars in enhancing it," Rogers says. She says the Council has met with "multiple managing directors over the years, we've met with Mayor Nutter." Although, she says, there's been acknowledgment of the challenge, action has been slow in coming.
"The Parkway can't be enjoyed to its optimum if it doesn't feel clean and safe," Rogers observes. "Trash is strewn everywhere, and the Parkway often becomes a public restroom.
The problem is compounded by the "well-meaning religious, school, and community groups that are coming and feeding people," says Paul Levy, executive director of the Center City District. "There's a consensus that the need is paramount — but to simply provide it in a public environment doesn't help the process." Bringing food without health permits or attendant toilet facilities only flies in the face of the steady work offered by the city's established support groups, Levy adds.
"We understand the desire to help, but we'd like to see it approached a bit differently," seconds Mintz. Both she and Levy cite the "housing first" model as one that works. This national program, created by the New York City-based Pathways to Housing in 1992 emphasizes providing shelter before addressing supportive treatment services, a move that many believe can get resistant populations off of the streets quickly and effectively.
Mintz says that an additional 50 such units are "coming online" in the near future and that social workers are in the process of trying to figure out how many of the Parkway homeless are on the waiting list for such services. This is especially imperative, she adds, as cold weather starts to set in.
Meanwhile, Levy and Rogers say that stricter enforcement of the Fairmount Park 1 a.m. curfew (its rules and regulations state that "permits are required if you're in the Park after the 1:00 a.m. curfew") would help. "The Street administration directed the police not to enforce this regulation," says Levy, "and that policy has been allowed to carry over."
Mintz was not willing to state whether there are any plans from on high to change this, saying only that "in the early morning, police will try to get folks who have reclined there overnight to move along. We're always trying to address this. It all comes down to folks' (the homeless and addicted) willingness to change their situation and our ability to accommodate them."
Mark Focht, first deputy commissioner of Fairmount Park, says that the "challenge with the Parkway is that it's a road. It's technically difficult to observe rules governing closure when there's no gate."
To those working to improve the Parkway's physical assets, the situation remains frustrating. "We've got one set of federal and city and foundation money working around the goal of animating and activating the Parkway and we have some carry over policies that are hindering that effort," says Levy. "There's no reason why the city can't balance the objectives of compassion and services with the recognition that to be successful as a city we also need quality attractive and safe public spaces."
Contact the reporter at jgreco@planphilly.com and follow her on Twitter @joanngreco
Comments
If they can't make overtime then they aren't concerned. Bottom line why things aren't enforced. Pay to play!
"Many cultural institutions have invested millions of dollars into enhancing it"...have any of those dollars gone toward finding solutions to the issues of homelessness? Or is landscaping more important than people?
The troubling thing about this article is that the main concern seems to be that homeless people won't be aesthetically pleasing to museum-goers. But perhaps what's really making us uncomfortable is that when the homeless live in close proximity to places that more affluent people frequent, it's harder to ignore the problem, pretend it doesn't exist, and avoid the tricky moral questions it might bring up. Their presence forces us to acknowledge that the reality of our society and our city may not be as pretty, just, or sparkling clean as we'd like to pretend.
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Programs are in place to help them. They choose not to follow the rules of the programs and choose to live the way they live. To ignore their presence and to allow them to defecate/urinate on the grounds like dogs plus intimidate passerby with their smell and panhandling demands for money will only cause visitors to not want to go there to see the museums again. The social reformers in high office do nothing about this festering problem on the parkway as they lie in wait stealthily to pounce upon those who demand the homeless problem be cleared away in the Parkway by calling them insensitive to the homeless.
Barnes knew of the upcoming problem on the parkway, yet they remained quiet until the site could be secured via City Council approval, approval of assorted city agencies and the issuing of construction permits. They did not want to raise a stink lest they cause the social reformers to screw up their plans to erect the Barnes on the Parkway. that is why the Mayor/Governor had to lie quiet to avoid ruffling the feathers of social reformers in high places and in media cirules.
Ditto to all other plans that involved construction of new lights, sidewalks, renovation of the Rodin Museum, and construction of a new park near the Cathedral Basilica. People knew of the problem and had to be politically saavy/correct to the social reformers in City Countil to ensure smooth passage of approvals needed for the projects to be greenlighted.
Panhandler and homelessness are the two reasons I avoid CC for dining and shopping. Don't want my family to be subjected to vagrants routinely spralled out across CC's sidewalks or harrased by beggars for a handout. Nutter and Co. should do much more to shelter and feed these unfortnate souls. And enforce the laws that are currently on the books. I am sure its costing the city 10's of millions of dollars in revenue to avoid doing what is simply humaine.
How dare the homeless be homeless! What are they thinking, don't they understand that there are multimillion dollar art exhibits that are much more interesting than they are? Why don't they just go somewhere where we can't see them, like North Philly?
Sometimes when I drive in from the suburbs I see them at the offramp. Ewww. I try not to make eye contact, as they might ask me for a dollar. How dare they! I just hope that some organization takes care of them so that I don't have to look at them anymore.
Perhaps Ms. Mintz should be asked why the City closed its overnight cafes that were designed to provide shelter and services to those homeless individuals who are "shelter averse". Many of the homeless are legitimately afraid of the large shelters that are the first stop to additional programs such as "housing first". Operating the overnight cafes only during the winter shortchanges their effectiveness and leaves the City and its most vulnerable residents at risk.
Has anyone come off I-95 or the Walt Whitman Bridge at Front st exits in So Philly to attend a game at the sports complex? At each intersection there are homeless going up to cars for handouts. Their back-ups are often sitting on the side waiting to spell them off! It appears they are living under the I-95 overpass as there are blankets, chairs and plenty of trash collecting there. One time a woman was so stoned as she stood on the road I was sure she'd fall into the path of an oncoming car. The police are often working the traffice lights at these intersections and allow it to continue.
Its discouraging to see the way the homeless are being spoken about here, as if they were a nuisance like flies. These are people too and we should be trying to help them. It seems that some people are placing higher value on art then on actual people. Hopefully you never find yourself in a similar situation. If you did you would probably be more sympathetic to the plight of the homeless.
I was in Philly with friends. We all live in diff/ areas and met there. We were shocked at not only the amount of homeless but the panhandlers. When we approached an officer we were told it is legal to beg in Philly. I find that gross esp. when u r in a nice area and hands r out for cash. Philly will never be a tourist spot if people have to dodge the homeless and beggers. I agree ith the other poster that bcse its a minoirty group, the mayor wont do anything. To say the least, we wont be going back to Philly
There are laws on the book regarding vagrancy and the city chooses not to enforce the laws they already have for political considerations. Were such homeless sitting on private property, people would call the police and they would be quickly hustled out of the private property. This is not India where the homeless are allowed to wander and sleep where they want to.
The Mayor is afraid of the minority population and its allies in City Council so remains silent and takes advantage of an pre-existing directive from the Street Administration still in place that calls for the police to leave the homeless alone unless they present a clear and present danger to public safety.
Yet when we create public jewels of art displays and allow the homeless to sleep over and defecate on the grounds of those institutions, we are creating a smelly slum that will have the effect of discouraging people from wanting to come back. Millions of dollars are spent for people to enjoy art and that is nokt for the homeless to use the grounds as a public urinal. or a place to sleep.
There are social services available and the hard core homeless choose not to take advantage of them. The police must be told to discourage hard core homeless from taking over the cultural district and keep them moving at all times. No one must be permitted to sleep on a bench in the dark of the night and those caught must be taken away to a public shelter. We must enforce the laws we have on the book order to protect the investments we have made in the art cultural district.
Many center city buildings built in the 1970's and later are designed to block homeless people from sitting in the public areas. There are no benches there and security personnel are trained to quickly vet the undesirables and to ask them to leave the premises. Security is tight as we have to take into consideration tenants who would quickly look for another building if the problem was not proactively taken care of.
A strongly enforced proactive policy must be enforced at all times to discourage the homeless from camping out on the art district and to encourage them to take advantage of treatment options offered them.
Let's be clear, this city has a legal obligation to find shelter for those who need it. And the city has not met its legal obligation. The city must be judged as a world class city because of its policies toward this great shame of our nation: the homeless, the hungry, the jobless, those who suffer great poverty. I'm sorry. As much as I appreciate good art and culture, my basic human consciousness puts the need of our greatest resource first: the citizens of this city. Anything else is morally bankrupt and corrupt. There are NOT enough social services available for those who want and need it and you know that to be true. The laws on the books must never lead. We have laws to guide us, but taking care of our people comes before any law. Laws serve us, not the other way around. What about public officials that have betrayed their trust? PHA cannot meet its obligations because they are too busy spending our monies to bail out that criminal Carl Greene and his sexual abuse crimes. Councilpeople take DROP money from those who need it to fill their pockets illegally. The sheriff's dept. has apparently "misplaced" funds. Call for their imprisonment first! Blaming those in need is the highest form of cowardice. We need more humane, more effective programs to combat this great shame. We can and we will end homelessness in our lifetime. Philadelphia would really be a world class city then.
Shelter is provided. Treatment options are offered. Yet the hard core homeless do not want to avail themselves of such options, instead, preferring to live their lives out in the open on their terms. Reason why they congregate on the Parkway is because they will get free food from a soup kitchen that can be quickly set up. This in itself cuts the legs under the city which is encouraging and offering them shelter, food and treatment.
Some of the homeless are delusional enough to think that people will give them a dollar and they might be right when it happens. But what do those people use the money for? Buying food? Most likely a bottle of wine and drugs to comfort their brains.
Point I am bringing up is that we have laws on the book barring vagrancy, yet the city chooses not to enforce those laws and tells the police to leave the homeless alone.
A clean parkway flanked by beautiful museums is what we want to have to draw in people from all over. To maintain this investment, we cannot let the homeless use the grounds for a public urinal.
I ride the bus through here evey day on my way to work. Most of the benches are taken by the homeless sleeping on them. Somemthing really needs to be done about this.