The
streets of Kensington are filled with abandoned factories where
thousands of jobs were offered in the past.  Now they’re just a
reminder of what used to be a flourishing neighborhood with a great
economy.  Today these factories are surrounded by street corners where
unemployed people are trying to make a living by selling drugs. 

According
to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent data in 2000, 44.2% of
Kensington residents were not enrolled in the labor force and 13.7% of
individuals and 8.5% of families were below the poverty level.  

“People
used to walk out of their house and go to the factory and go to work,”
said Galen Tyler, the K.W.R.U Director.  “Now that the jobs aren’t
there in the factories, people are walking out of their house and
walking to the corner to sell drugs to try and figure out how to feed
their families.”

Tyler
explains that in order to live here in Philadelphia and be able to
afford a one bedroom apartment, one needs to be making at least $16 an
hour.  “Now if these guys could go to work at McDonald’s and get $16 an
hour, you wouldn’t see one of these guys out here selling drugs,” Tyler
said.

John Talossi, 21, an
addict for seven years and now a seller, said he’s been trying to fill
out applications and he doesn’t receive any phone calls so all he knows
is to hustle.  “It’s like second nature in this neighborhood.  It’s
hard around here,” Talossi said. 

Downhill Blocks

The
K.W.R.U. Directors have seen certain blocks in the Kensington
neighborhood turn into serious drug blocks within the last six months. 
What was once a calm and mellow neighborhood, a block of Arbor Street
has turned into a chaotic, drug infested street. Dowlin said this
specific block was never great but never that bad either. 

“A lot of abandoned houses that create an attractive nuisance for drug addicts and drug dealers,” Dowlin said. 

According
to the Philadelphia Neighborhood Information Systems most recent data
in 2000, out of a total of 7,417 properties in Kensington, 1,833 were
vacant.

“When you have the
jobs leave, people leave and when people leave you get abandoned houses
and abandoned houses mean that homeless people are gonna sneak in there
to live.  Drug dealers will sneak in there to use it as a place to get
high safely off the streets,” Dowlin said.  He believes that all three
of these situations are going on simultaneously in each house on
numerous blocks.

K.W.R.U
has Human Rights houses in Kensington, which are houses that K.W.R.U.
has secured and keeps financially in balance for their members to live
in.  In exchange for a place to live, the members work as organizers
and activists.  One of the houses is located on Arbor Street.

The Source of Drugs to Kensington

“If
it’s not coming from America, it’s gotta come from another country,”
Dowlin said.  “There’s only two ways, boats and planes.  No one in
North Philly owns a boat or a plane.  I guarantee it.  So someone else
is bringing it to us,” Dowlin said.

Being
a seller and addict for several years, Talossi has handled many drugs. 
“I feel it’s from the government,” Talossi said.  “Ain’t no way
somebody’s bringing in all these drugs without somebody okaying it or
something.  Drugs are put in Kensington and North Philadelphia for a
reason,” Talossi said. 

Only
having traveled as far as Florida, Talossi said he is not bringing in
the drugs and he doesn’t know anyone in Kensington who does.  He
doesn’t have the money or access to travel to these places where these
drugs are made in order to bring them back to the U.S. himself.

“I
just deal with the facts, it doesn’t add up.  Someone’s bringing it in
and why, to keep poor people from having a couple of dollars so we
don’t riot.  Keep poor people illegal to fill up the prisons, they’re
making money off of that.  Also keep us high, keep us dumb, deaf and
blind.  If we get numb to the pain, then we won’t revolt.  We won’t
organize, we won’t wake up and start talking,” Dowlin said.

Tyler
feels that the media talks about spending $90 billion in the last two
decades, on the war on drugs.  He questions why all of that money
hasn’t stopped the selling of drugs on the corner of Somerset and
Kensington, the number one drug corner in Philadelphia.

“They don’t want it to stop.  It’s all a money making scheme,” Talossi said.

The Vicious Cycle of a Corrupt Life of a Drug Addict

The
drug war in Kensington is one result of the vicious cycle of
socioeconomics in this country.  The lack of jobs creates poverty which
creates homelessness which leads to drugs and crime.  They are all
connected.  Since there are no jobs, no money can be made in order to
survive and support a family so users escape from their poverty, by
getting high to forget about their problems.

Talib,
a recovering addict, said he used to come to Kensington to get high to
escape reality.  He had a wife and kids but he just wanted to escape
reality where he didn’t have to worry about paying the bills and all of
the stress that comes along with having a family.  He wanted the easy
way out so he used drugs to ease the pain.  “Kensington is a rundown
place where people become nothing,” Talib said. 

Dowlin
supports Talib’s reasoning for his old ways by explaining that users
escape poverty through not dealing with reality. They’re escaping
poverty through selling drugs and making money.   “They just nod out
and put a needle in their arm or put a crack pipe in their mouth and
they turn off that emotion.” Dowlin said.  “It’s a brief escape.  They
want to escape to where they’re not worried about it for a quick
moment.”

This escape from
poverty leads to addiction into the serious drug world.  When the
addict decides to get help and go to a temporary rehab center, they are
sent back out into the same drug infested neighborhood where they are
able to get back into the same situation that they started in.  This
then leads back them back into becoming depressed and demoralized in
which they want to “escape” again.

“I
need to get out of this neighborhood, I need to get out,” said Michael
Jones, 21, an addict for six years.  He went to a 30-day rehab and has
had spells of being clean for two weeks at a time but he lives in the
same drug infested neighborhood where drug sellers are at every corner
asking you to buy from them. 

Without
the correct rehabilitation and proper treatment for the correct amount
of time, addicts will more than likely end up back on the street where
they started.  There are programs out there for these addicts such as
Prevention Point Philadelphia who offers referrals to detox and drug
treatment centers at their syringe exchange sites.  This may not be
enough for addicts like Jones who has been an addict for six years and
only received a 30-day rehabilitation program.  Although longer
rehabilitation programs are not currently being looked into, the city
and Prevention Point are both investigating a better solution to the
disposal of the needles being given out at the syringe exchange
sites.   

Councilwoman,
Maria D. Quinones-Sanchez of the Seventh District said by June 30,
2008, they hope to come up with a better solution for Prevention
Point’s syringe exchange site at Front and Tusculum streets located in
Kensington.  This site has been causing most of the frustration that
residents feel about the disposal issue.  A rarely used railroad track
across the street from the exchange site lends itself to the addicts as
a space to use their drugs.  Used needles can be seen scattered
throughout this area contributing to a very unsterile environment for
the users, residents and the community. 

“We’re
working with the city and the railroad to figure out ways to provide a
cleanup and try to figure out how to keep the area cleaned up,” said
Jose Benitez, Executive Director of Prevention Point Philadelphia.  He
expresses that they are aware of the disposal problem and that they
need to be more creative in collecting used syringes.

“We’re
not just looking at the hospitals but what other facilities in the area
would be a little more appropriate,” said Quinones-Sanchez.  “In terms
of vending, we identified a lot at 2nd and Indiana [that] the city
owns.”  The city hopes to come up with a permanent solution for the
disposal issue at Prevention Point’s site in Kensington by the end of
June this year.

The Big Solution 

Quinones-Sanchez
said, “We’ve had a problem with drugs and drug usage in the Seventh
District [with] heavy concentration in West Kensington that we’re very
much aware of.”  Quinones-Sanchez adds that there is an economy to the
drug issue and it unfortunately has developed roots for a long time so
it’s going to take the city a little bit to address the issue but it
has to be with the approach of prevention, treatment and then from a
law enforcement perspective. 

“Unless
we deal with it comprehensively, we’re just going to be doing bandage
work and not really looking at all of our city services wrapped around
really curtailing drugs,” Quinones-Sanchez said.

“Kensington
is a hot bed for drug sale, drug use,” Benitez said.  “There are a lot
of socioeconomic situations going on, it’s complicated.”  Benitez
explains that it’s not just a drug problem but there’s a lot of
different factors that go into feeding this issue such as the lack of
services in the community that only speak English in a community that
is mainly Latino.  This language barrier may be a small factor but it’s
leading to a large population of drug users who can’t receive any help,
even if they wanted to go voluntarily.

“We
talk about supply and demand, we gotta stop it at both ends,” Dowlin
said.  “We gotta stop the demand for it by getting people clean and we
gotta stop the supply by stopping it from coming in.  We gotta stop
kids from wanting to sell drugs because they need to make money so we
gotta give them other choices and other options.” 

Quinones-Sanchez
agrees with the residents of this area in Kensington that the city
hasn’t been doing a good job with the recreation facilities,
particularly in this district and the city is aware of that.  “We
definitely have a situation where we’re not appropriately using our rec
centers,” said Quinones-Sanchez.  “In the seventh district, when I
started January 7th, we had three rec centers that were closed.  I
probably have another seven underutilized.” 

This
drug issue doesn’t only affect the dealer and the addict, it affects
everyone.  People who live on these blocks where drugs are heavily sold
that have nothing to do with drugs, are also being affected by this
major drug issue.  They’re changing their lifestyle in order to live in
their house in this location.  On the 3000 block of Ella Street, one of
the busiest drug blocks in Kensington, numerous black steel cages on
the front porches of houses can be seen lining the streets.  “Their
worried about someone breaking in to take their microwave to get 20
bucks to get high,” Dowlin said.  In order to have a normal life living
on this block where they can afford to survive, they have to suffer
with the consequences of the neighborhood and the problems of others
who are getting into the wrong things. 

“When
people thinking about the effects, everything that affects us, let’s
start going to the root causes and once we start looking at the root
causes with drugs, how they affect all of us, that’s when we gonna come
up with a real solution,” Tyler said.

Although
this drug war is affecting Kensington locally, the bigger problems need
to be solved at a more global level.  This will help reduce the
trickling effect of drugs so less are on the streets of Kensington. 
More addicts will become clean which will lead to an overall cleaner
and safer environment in the Kensington community.

“In
New Jerusalem [a personal and societal recovery organization] they have
a quote, a saying that I think is very good to end right now, they say,
“We can never fully recover ourselves, until we’ve recovered the
society that made us sick,” Dowlin said.

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