Global Courant 2023-04-29 13:30:09
This is the sixth story in a series about the outdoor drug market in Kensington. Read the First, second, third, fourth And fifth components.
PHILADELPHIA — Giving food and other services to drug users at Kensington, a well-known open-air drug market in the City of Brotherly Love, only encourages dealers and perpetuates addiction, a local activist told Fox News.
“The best way I can describe Kensington is that it’s a war zone,” said Dennis Payne. “Kensington was given to the wolves and the wolves run with it.
Payne was speaking in front of McPherson Square, known locally as “Needle Point Park, where everything drug related happens”. The activist started the Facebook group EyE of Kensington, which acts as a bulletin board for the neighborhood.
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“It’s a dead country,” Payne said. “There’s nothing good left here in Kensington. It’s all slowly dying out.’
The community has become internationally known for rampant drug use and its sale in the open. The sidewalks are littered with drug addicts who are capped and sprawled, needles along the concrete.
“Most people in this area have some sort of mental (or) physical (disability) or drug addiction,” Payne told Fox News. “What you see is the result of a very rough life.”
But the activist believes much of Social Security, such as food distributions, encourages more drug use.
Dennis Payne, a Kensington activist, fears that feeding addicts will only lead to more drug use in the neighborhood. (Fox news)
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“By feeding these people, you’re giving the other people cover to do their thing, to keep these people hooked,” Payne said. “And that’s the system that has to stop. There has to be some sort of break in the system.”
“These guys are the guys, for you Christians, you should be here to shelter them, not feed them a tuna sandwich,” he added.
Payne also said services in Kensington are attracting more addicts as they see they can receive local assistance, freeing up whatever money they can scrape together. drug purchases in the open and use.
“They see all the services coming here,” he told Fox News. “So they migrate here.”
Addicts are on the wall in Kensington. One waves as if struggling to stay upright. (Fox News digital)
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“They need to be cared for and taken off the streets,” continued Payne. “There is no reason for someone who is mentally and physically disabled to use drugs here.”
And addicts aren’t the only ones suffering in Kensington. Payne pointed out the crimes addicts commit to “get the money to get the drugs.”
“They’re breaking all kinds of laws,” he said. ‘I don’t have to tell you what they’re doing. Just look at our police logs.’
According to data collected by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
A vape and rubber bands lie next to a passed out addict. The cap of a needle can also be seen. All are common landmarks in Kensington. (Fox news)
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Neighborhood specific information is limited, but Kensington’s median per capita income was half the citywide median salary for 2012-2016, while the violent crime rate was 30% higher, Drexel University reported in 2019.
Meanwhile, crime and rampant drug use aside, Kensington is still a neighborhood like any other with families living, working and playing in the community.
“There are kids living there who have to walk over bodies to catch the bus, get to school, get to the library,” Frank Rodriguez, a recovering addict and former Kensington resident, previously told Fox News. “There are people who have been held hostage in their own homes in that community.”
On a metal support in Kensington hang opioid overdose kits containing naloxone – commonly called Narcan, it is. (Fox news)
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Still, Payne makes it clear that Kensington needs help.
“Don’t be afraid, America, to come here,” he told Fox News. “It is your sons and daughters who are here.”
“Many of these people are even grandparents who are here who smoke crack, who use heroin,” Payne said.
Click here to hear more from Payne.
Ethan Barton is a producer/reporter for Digital Originals. You can reach him at ethan.barton@fox.com and follow him on Twitter at @ethanrbarton.
