Philly board of health approves city-wide permitting rules for mobile services

The Philadelphia Board of Health unanimously approved a regulation that establishes a city-wide permitting process for mobile medical providers on Thursday night. 

The regulation is tied to Councilmember Quetcy Lozada’s mobile services ban that was signed into law by Mayor Cherelle Parker in May. The ordinance requires mobile medical providers in the 7th District to apply for permits. Those granted permits can operate in an undetermined, city-designated location or between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. on a two-block stretch of Allegheny Avenue in Kensington.

But enforcement of the law has been delayed due to the absence of a permitting process.  

The board was expected to vote on the regulation during its last meeting in August, but delayed the vote citing legal and equity concerns.

Since then, the city’s Department of Public Health revised the regulation to require all mobile medical providers to apply for permits, even if operating outside the 7th district.

“A city-wide permitting process can help strengthen the department's understanding of mobile medical services that are offered within the city and their public health impacts,” the regulation states. “The board intends for the permitting system to help ensure that mobile medical services are delivered by health care practitioners according to appropriate standards of care.”

The regulation requires providers to submit applications to the health department that include licensure information of the health care practitioners operating or overseeing their mobile care van, a description of the services provided from their vehicle, and their policies related to patient care and personnel. 

Board members made it clear that their approval of the regulation was not a stamp of approval of Lozada’s ordinance. 

“We are not in any way endorsing the ordinance or not. We are being asked to vote on a regulation for providing permits for these medical providers throughout the city, correct?” asked board member Dr. Ana Diez Roux, Director of Drexel University's Urban Health Collaborative. 

Department of Public Health Commissioner Palak Raval-Nelson confirmed. 

“And the goal of the regulation is to ensure adequate, quality and coordinated care for people who need it?” asked Diez Roux. “Correct,” Raval-Nelson replied.   

Raval-Nelson also clarified that restrictions on where and when service providers can operate are only part of the ordinance, not the regulation, after a prompt from board member Dr. Usama Bilal, Co-Director of Drexel's Urban Health Collaborative. 

Raval-Nelson said if the board did not pass the regulation, the city would move forward without the health department. A different city department would pass a regulation and issue permits so the city could enforce the ordinance. 

Now that the permitting regulation has been approved, the health department can move forward with creating and offering an application to providers. Until providers have a chance to get permits, the ordinance will not be enforced. 

But some details remain in limbo. As of July 22nd, the city had not yet determined a location in Kensington where providers will be permitted to operate during the day. 

The city did not respond to requests for comment.

A piece of a national trend

The ordinance is part of a broader trend of criminalizing homelessness across the country, said Eric Tars, Senior Policy Director of the National Homelessness Law Center. 

The criminalization of homeless service providers has been going on for decades, though multiple attempts across the country have been shut down in courts, including in Philadelphia, he said.  

In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and the law firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, & Feinberg filed a federal lawsuit against the city and previous Mayor Michael Nutter, on behalf of churches who wanted to serve food to unhoused people in public parks. The city had passed regulations that would have banned them from doing so. 

The lawsuit argued that the ban interfered with the churches’ religious freedoms. Federal Judge William Hendricks Yohn agreed, and issued a court order forbidding the city from interfering.

More recently, in March 2025, Fremont city council in California revised an ordinance, following public outcry, that would have punished people who were “aiding and abetting” homeless encampments. The council removed the “aiding and abetting” language, but the ordinance still makes it illegal to camp on streets, sidewalks, parks, and other public property. 

“There's been a lot of recognition by the courts that these sorts of policies, even though they have the sort of veneer of ‘We're just trying to regulate health’ are actually shutting down speech, shutting down religious expression, and aren't constitutional,” Tars said. 

But the future of legal protection is uncertain. In 2024 the Supreme Court ruled cities can prohibit people from sleeping or camping in public places, giving cities more power to remove homeless encampments. President Donald Trump signed an executive order this year that makes it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments. 

If Philly’s ordinance were challenged in court today under the Trump administration, Tars said, “We might see the Trump administration coming in on the side of the Parker administration, as opposed to on the side of people living on the streets of Philadelphia.” 

Tars, and public commenters during Thursday’s board meeting, said the ban in Kensington is not going to end homelessness in the neighborhood, and in fact, will increase homelessness and worsen quality of life issues. 

A few Kensington residents reiterated concerns about children having to witness people accessing medical care outside their homes.

“The blocks of Ruth and Somerset are heavily inundated with service providers, and it negatively impacts the residents that pay taxes, that vote, that are just trying to live life as peacefully as they can,” said Roxy Rivera, president of local civic group Somerset Neighbors for Better Living (SNBL). 

“Yes, it’d be great if there was another solution, but right now we’re looking at the solution that solves the problem now,” said resident Dominic Chacon, another SNBL member. 

But others still dissented, concerned the ordinance will lead to more deaths.

“Any barriers to life saving care is only going to hurt and increase the risk of fatal overdose,” said Aileen Callaghan, who lives on Allegheny and Jasper. 

Living in Philadelphia, Tars said he empathizes with residents' frustration.

“We just don't have enough housing and addiction services and other health services to go around. And trying to paper that over with ordinances like this ... that hasn't worked, that’s never worked. It's not going to work this time, and to pretend otherwise is just to delay us getting to the actual solutions and keep people on the streets for longer.”