Sammy Caiola is a reporter with a passion for community engagement and trauma-informed journalism. She previously served as WHYY’s gun violence prevention reporter and hosted podcasts about stop and frisk and sexual assault.
Accountability
State Sens. Greg Rothman and Christine Tartaglione, along with most of the 13-member opioid settlement trust, voted “no” to Philadelphia’s spending on Kensington eviction prevention, home repairs, and improvements to schools and parks. The trust will hear the city’s appeal on Oct. 3.
Clean Streets
The new Pennsylvania Adult and Teen Challenge (PAATC) center is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with plans to eventually offer nighttime hours.
Kids in Kensington
Engaging with people who deal drugs is key to breaking up Kensington’s open-air drug market, but city leaders have overlooked this population while creating new law enforcement strategies for the neighborhood, says Ride Free.
Accountability
Cahill, a mother of two sons, was one of 34 people arrested for narcotics violations and outstanding warrants in a coordinated police sweep under Mayor Cherelle Parker’s Kensington initiative.
Accountability
Police arrested 34 people for “narcotics violations,” including drug paraphernalia and possession, as well as outstanding warrants
Accountability
Philly police ordered overdose vigil volunteers to move their tables from their setup near McPherson Square Library down to the street.
Accountability
The police oversight agency, known as CPOC, was created by a city ordinance in 2021 to improve transparency and accountability in policing.
Clean Streets
Researchers are studying whether therapeutic writing exercises and cash incentives help motivate women with a history of drug use to continue taking PrEP and decrease their illicit drug use.
Housing & Shelter
Streets were closed from Kensington Avenue to Emerald Street and Orleans to Somerset streets.
Accountability
The state trust that oversees the disbursement of opioid settlement dollars says Philadelphia improperly used $7.5 million on eviction prevention, home repair, and improvements to schools and parks.
Guides & Resources
A very long chart for a very long process.
Accountability
Prison staff say the staffing shortage makes it impossible to deliver timely, high-quality care for the approximately 4,700 people incarcerated in Philadelphia’s jails daily – a majority of whom present with substance use disorder.
Accountability
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Bethel named gun violence and illegal drug activity as top priorities, plus other crimes “that have kept that community pretty much imprisoned for a long time.”
Accountability
While open drug use in Kensington continues to make national headlines, Philadelphia health workers say the city’s Black residents are quietly overdosing from cocaine, opiates, and other substances at unprecedented rates inside their homes.
Accountability
Some residents feel safer, while others say the spillover from the sweep and increased police presence has caused problems on side streets.
Accountability
Following an encampment sweep on the 3000 and 3100 blocks of Kensington Avenue Wednesday, police have flooded the area, leading residents and activists to wonder when a law enforcement crackdown is coming
Accountability
When outreach workers arrived, the people staying in tents and structures on the 3000-3100 blocks of Kensington Avenue were gone.
Accountability
No city social services were present when police dispersed the encampments despite promises from city leaders that the initiative would be “service-led.”
Accountability
On Wednesday, social service providers and police officers will tell people living in tents or makeshift structures on Kensington Avenue’s 3000 and 3100 blocks to relocate.
Accountability
In some cases, people are connected to long-term recovery programs at Christian facilities that don’t provide evidence-based care, including required unpaid labor or “work therapy.”
Clean Streets
A new city program that hires a professional cleaning service to handle blood and other remains after outdoor shootings launched this month in the 25th police district.
Accountability
The law would create grants to assist hospitals in hiring Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, or SANE nurses, but it remains unfunded by the state.
Accountability
Deputy Police Commissioner Pedro Rosario wants to send the Philadelphia Police Department’s “best out of the best” to Kensington
Accountability
State law requires Pennsylvania hospitals to provide rape kit exams on site. Still, Philly's three largest hospital systems have protocols for transferring sexual assault survivors to a facility that is co-located with law enforcement, receives no city funding, and is about $400,000 under budget.
