A network of recovery housing for people who've been through short-term, inpatient addiction treatment programs is opening in Northeast Philadelphia and will begin accepting residents this month, city officials said Wednesday.
The Riverview Wellness Village at 7979 State Road sits beside the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Holmesburg on a 19-acre, city-owned property along the Delaware River. The city has retrofitted six cottages there as part of a $100 million project to address the needs of people with substance use disorders and mental health issues. Many of them also may be homeless.
MORE: Stimulant users are caught in fatal 'fourth wave' of opioid epidemic
Inpatient programs will refer people to the wellness village, which has 336 beds, a central meeting house, communal living spaces and kitchens. Another 300 slots are planned for another facility on the property, city Managing Director Adam Thiel said.
Residents will have access to primary health care, mental health care, chronic disease management and other services delivered on site by the Black Doctors Consortium and Merakey, a behavioral health service provider.
People can stay for as long as one year at the city's cost as part of a five-year plan. The goal is for them to reintegrate into the community and to find permanent housing, said Isabel McDevitt, the city's executive director of community wellness and recovery. Approximately 200 people are on the waiting list to get into the wellness village from inpatient treatment settings.
"This is about putting people on the path to self-sufficiency," Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said at a press conference Wednesday. She said that Philadelphia would "be a role model for the nation for how you deal with this issue."
The wellness village is part of Parker's broader plan to improve public safety and to "restore" and "revitalize" Kensington, the largest open-air drug market on the East Coast.
In May, the city began an ongoing series of encampment clearings of unsheltered people, many of whom are also in deep addiction. The second phase of this effort involved the deployment of 75 new police recruits to crack down on quality-of-life and low-level drug crimes in Kensington. The city is also testing a "neighborhood wellness court" at the Police Assisted Diversion office at B Street and Lehigh Avenue to fast-track people arrested in Kensington to treatment or jail. The wellness court is set to start Jan. 21, Director of Public Safety Adam Greer said.
The city also launched Philly Home at Girard last spring. The Fairmount facility has approximately 200 emergency shelter beds and another 130 medical beds for people with substance use disorders, mental health issues and medical needs. Prevention Point Philadelphia, Project HOME and WES Health System are the providers there.
"We are committed to getting folks help in ways that are dignified and decent," Greer said.
The American Civil Liberties Union and some harm reduction and outreach groups have raised concerns about the neighborhood wellness court and the city's law-and-order approach to the addiction and homeless crisis. They say the city may potentially violate people's due process rights and put them in danger of acute withdrawal and other medical issues stemming from the the city's volatile illicit drug supply.
The chief operating officers of Temple Health, Jefferson Health and the University of Pennsylvania Health System have all endorsed the wellness village as a "step forward" in addressing substance use disorders and meeting the need for recovery services and housing in the city.
By allowing people to stay for a year and connecting them to services, people are "less likely to relapse and end up on the streets again," McDevitt said. "We're talking about people who have families. They are somebody's brother, somebody's son, somebody's husband, somebody's wife, and so a lot of times when people can stabilize in their recovery they can reintegrate back into their families and their communities."