A homeless person sleeps on top of a baggage carousel at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Monday, May 25, 2020.
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
Philadelphia will shut down homeless encampment next week
-
The Associated Press
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
A homeless person sleeps on top of a baggage carousel at Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Monday, May 25, 2020.
(Philadelphia) — Philadelphia will soon close an encampment of homeless people that sprang up four weeks at a city park.
The encampment near Benjamin Franklin Parkway will be shuttered July 17, city officials announced Friday.
They called the move an action “very much of last resort” that comes after encampment organizers refused the city’s offers to meet their demands, which officials said kept shifting. They also cited a lack of clarity about which organizers spoke for the group running the encampment.
In a statement issued late Thursday, Philadelphia Housing Action — the coalition of groups that organized the encampment — said they had ended talks with the city. They cited the city’s “failure to provide or even offer a single unit of housing” to any of the camp’s 150-plus residents and the imposition of “an artificial deadline” for disbanding the camp.
The coalition said the encampment was conceived as a form of political protest over city policies toward the homeless and the lack of low-income housing in the city.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
