The Parker administration’s drug treatment facility will open early next year, mayor says

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration will open the first phase of a new city-funded treatment facility for people who use drugs early in the new year, marking a significant milestone in the mayor’s plan to address the open-air drug market in Kensington.

Parker said during a major year-end speech Friday that the city will soon open rehabilitated cottages at the Riverview Wellness Village, a former personal care home at 7979 State Rd. next to the city’s jail complex in Northeast Philadelphia. The city also plans to construct a new building on the campus — which could take two years or more — where a majority of patients will be housed and treated.

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Records show that the city can house up to 120 people in the first phase of opening, The Inquirer reported earlier this year.

The Parker administration has highlighted the site at Riverview, which will eventually house up to 640 people, as a major part of its strategy to house and treat people who use drugs, especially in Kensington, where hundreds of people in addiction live on the street. The administration has employed strategies to relocate people from the neighborhood this year, but residents say police-led interventions have often simply moved drug traffic from one block to another.

Parker earlier this year asked City Council to approve $100 million in borrowing to finance the facility, and in June, lawmakers voted to fund the plan.

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The mayor said during her speech Friday that she will hold her first cabinet meeting of the year at the facility in January. Parker described the facility as a “refuge for people who are living on the streets.”

“And it will provide a place to get them treatment when they need it in a state-of-the-art, dignified environment,” she said.

There are seven existing buildings on the Riverview complex, which is about 19 acres and sits along a quiet patch of land overlooking the Delaware River. According to city records, several of those buildings need to be gutted. But two were in better physical shape and were expected to open first. Those buildings are to be made up of 30 communal living units averaging four beds each.

Initially, the Riverview complex will be considered a “low-intensity” residential treatment facility, meaning patients are admitted only if withdrawal symptoms or other medical conditions do not require hospital-level care.