Kensington outreach group travels to Wilmington, Del. to look for lost homeless they helped

The City of Philadelphia has been working to clean up Kensington for several years now, but in the process, people who once lived on the streets there are moving to other cities. And, outreach groups are losing track of the people they were working to take care of.

NBC10’s Johnny Archer went out with one group, Operation Save Our City, on Wednesday night as they tried to search for missing people in Wilmington, Delaware.

“I’m trying to figure how many of my folks from Kensington ended up here,” said Rosalind  Pichardo.

The outreach group said they are concerned because some of the folks who have gone missing won’t get the resources they need.

The group went to a homeless encampment in the Christina Park neighborhood of Wilmington and handed out bananas and Narcan.

“This current drug supply is so dangerous,” Pichardo said. “Other cities might not know how to deal with detox and withdrawal from this current drug supply, and if we get folks back home to deal with their condition, they have a chance to survive.”

Since the City of Philadelphia started cleaning up Kensington under Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration, many unhoused people have left Philadelphia.

NBC10 investigators reported last month that the City of Philadelphia was buying one-way bus tickets to send unhoused people out of the city.

A program from the city that buys one-way bus tickets for Philadelphia’s unhoused population is using taxpayer money to fund it. NBC10 investigative reporter Claudia Vargas looks into the reasons why.

But neighboring communities are  feeling the impact.

Wilmington Mayor John Carney said his city is one of them.

“It’s just not right for these other places to send their folks to Wilmington,” Carney said last week. “The constant influx from cities and towns makes it hard for us to care for the population here. And most importantly, it’s unfair for the city residents who live in these neighborhoods.”

Pichardo said the solution to cleaning up Kensington should not be sending people some place else.

“This certainly can’t be the solution to cleaning up Kensington,” she said. “Rerouting people to other cities to make it another city’s problem.”

NBC10 reached out to Mayor Parker’s office on this issue and has not yet heard back.

Operation Save Our City said they did not find any of the people they were looking for on Wednesday night, but they will be back on Thursday to continue their search.