PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Occupants of a small homeless encampment outside the Philadelphia Housing Authority departed Monday night under an agreement that officials hope will lead to the clearing of a much larger encampment that has been on the city’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway for months.
Approximately 20 people are to begin a process that will eventually get them into nine now-vacant homes in northwest Philadelphia, with several of them working on rehabilitation of the houses, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Mayor Jim Kenney said Monday that he hoped the pact “will lead to a resolution of the separate protest encampment” of 100 to 150 people on the parkway, as well as two other ancillary sites. Kenney called issues of homelessness and lack of affordable housing “deep-rooted and urgent.”
The tent encampment on the parkway was erected on a baseball field June 10 and the one outside the housing authority in north Philadelphia later that month. Organizers said the camps were tied to the Black Lives Matter movement and were demanding equal access to fair, safe and affordable housing. Philadelphia Housing Action - the coalition of groups that organized the encampment - said it was conceived as a form of political protest over homeless policies and the lack of low-income housing.
“We’re proud that we were able to get a win like this,” the newspaper quoted PHA organizer Jennifer Bennetch as saying.
A federal judge earlier gave the green light for the city to clear out the encampments but required occupants to receive at least 72 hours’ notice and said any property seized must be stored and returned. City officials have ordered people there to leave several times, but relented each time.
Officials had said more than 138 people had accepted aid such as transitional housing in COVID-19 spaces in hotels, or residential treatment, recovery homes and shelters. Protesters have demanded permanent housing using vacant spaces, but one official said the demand he characterized as “turning over the keys to vacant blighted property” was not a viable option.
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