When Mayor Cherelle Parker took workplace slightly greater than a 12 months in the past, she laid out a sequence of concrete objectives and priorities, and requested residents to carry her accountable for performing on her commitments.
“You need to see your tax {dollars} at work in your neighborhood,” she mentioned in her inauguration deal with. “Don’t merely hearken to what I say. Watch what we do.”
It’s nonetheless early days, comparatively talking. The Parker administration has launched some promised applications, in areas like bettering trash pickup and addressing Kensington’s challenges, whereas others — just like the plan for constructing a ton of recent housing — have but to be rolled out.
Listed here are a number of the priorities and tasks Parker highlighted in a couple of key areas, and the place they stand to date.
Crime
At her inauguration, Parker promised to handle town’s stubbornly excessive charges of violent crime by making new investments in public security, together with hiring 400 new officers yearly to fill out the understaffed police division.
She promised a brand new forensics lab (which has been deliberate for years), vehicles, drones, and different tech, in addition to continued funding for group teams doing anti-violence work. She additionally promised to help the Residents Police Oversight Fee (CPOC), which is meant to research police misconduct and enhance group belief in regulation enforcement.
The town acquired fairly near Parker’s hiring aim, bringing on 369 officers as of earlier this month, per NBC10. Philly PD remains to be far wanting full staffing, with about 5,020 officers, whereas being budgeted for greater than 6,000. The drones are apparently coming, whereas the lab is reportedly nonetheless a way off from being accomplished. CPOC has struggled to operate and the police union needs to dam its work.
In the meantime violent crime dropped sharply, with homicides down 37% in 2024 in comparison with the earlier 12 months and shootings falling 36%. Officers attribute the drop partially to the enlargement of anti-violence applications run by town and native organizations, and it might additionally replicate a broader post-pandemic lower in violent crime in cities throughout the U.S.
Kensington
The mayor tasked Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel with “creating a technique to completely shut down open-air drug markets, together with in Kensington,” and mentioned she would reverse the Kenney administration’s tolerant strategy towards open drug use.
Final spring the police started conducting periodic sweeps of the neighborhood, arresting folks for drug possession and different comparatively minor offenses and clearing tent encampments. The division devoted 75 further officers to policing the realm.
The administration additionally took steps towards bettering therapy and shelter choices for homeless drug customers, most not too long ago by opening a 336-bed long-term restoration house in Northeast Philly and establishing a “wellness courtroom” that can let some arrestees select between coming into therapy or dealing with felony prosecution.
The influence of the hassle is combined to date. Narcotics arrests within the Kensington space doubled in comparison with the earlier 12 months, and shootings within the neighborhood fell sharply. However different kinds of crimes reportedly elevated and tent encampments have sprung up in new places because the outdated ones are cleared.
“The revival of Kensington just isn’t going to occur in a single day or inside months,” a spokesperson within the Managing Director’s Workplace mentioned in September.
Trash
Parker consistently cites her aim to make Philly the “cleanest, greenest” large metropolis within the nation, and vowed to shake off the “Filthadelphia” tag by means of a raft of recent trash removing efforts.
She promised to develop a program that employs folks to wash industrial corridors, and lengthen it to close by residential streets. The newly distinct Sanitation Division launched a twice-a-year blitz to wash each block within the metropolis, in addition to crews devoted to every council district that clear 4 instances a 12 months. Metropolis staff are additionally cleansing vacant tons, towing deserted automobiles, and addressing potholes and graffiti.
The mayor mentioned her first funds would pay for 500 further BigBelly trash and recycling receptacles on sidewalks, and the staffing wanted to verify they’re emptied usually. The town piloted twice-a-week trash assortment in South Philly and a part of Middle Metropolis, with plans to develop it to different neighborhoods. Road sweeping with vehicles and crews continues, however remains to be reserved to only 14 neighborhoods for half the 12 months.
Are all these applications having an influence? It’s exhausting to say. The town hasn’t carried out a Litter Index survey since 2019. The brand new Philly Stat 360 information hub offers measures of on-time trash assortment (100% as of November) and the time it takes to wash up unlawful dumping (16 days), however doesn’t attempt to observe trash or litter ranges. As of July, there was no dropoff in 311 trash complaints, per the Inquirer.
Anecdotally, some residents have mentioned they observed and appreciated the blitz crews with leafblowers coming by means of to gather litter and particles, whereas others mentioned the hassle has been sorely inadequate. The Inquirer’s before-and-after footage of some blocks appear to replicate these combined outcomes. BigBelly cans proceed to overflow with waste and it’s unclear if twice-a-week assortment is making issues higher or worse.
On the prevention facet, officers say they’re ticketing dumpers and amassing hundreds of thousands in fines, however there have been simply 4 felony prosecutions in 2024, in accordance with information from the DA’s workplace, and there’s nonetheless an epidemic of unlawful dumping in some neighborhoods.
Housing
The mayor mentioned she needs to see 30,000 models of inexpensive housing “constructed or preserved” throughout her first time period, whether or not by personal builders, by the Philadelphia Housing Authority, with metropolis or state subsidies, or by present houses turning into inexpensive.
The town was already gaining a median of greater than 10,000 inexpensive models yearly, which means that Parker’s aim ought to be attainable, consultants advised WHYY.
A few of that’s occurring by means of PHA tasks, personal building that was beforehand deliberate, and the Flip the Key program that subsidizes house building on metropolis land for first-time patrons. The town’s information dashboard says 328 inexpensive models had been constructed or preserved in 2024.
Parker has mentioned her administration will launch a housing plan within the coming months and a brand new tracker of housing creation. It’s additionally attributable to launch a “One Entrance Door” program to make it simpler for residents to entry city-run house enchancment applications.
The mayor has mentioned she’d wish to see extra federal help for town’s housing objectives, and can be keen to fulfill with President Donald Trump or members of his administration to foyer for funding. “If you wish to assist Philadelphia, give us a billion {dollars},” she mentioned at a press convention this month.
Faculties
When she was working for mayor, Parker’s primary schooling proposal was voluntary, year-round education. That advanced right into a pilot program of extended-day and extended-year childcare, tutoring, and different choices at 20 common public colleges and 5 constitution colleges.
The trouble is funded by a $24 million improve within the quantity of property tax income town passes on to the varsity district.
As launched final fall, this system “primarily seems to be a brand new title for work that colleges and nonprofit suppliers have been doing for years,” Chalkbeat reported in October. Nevertheless, in some locations the brand new funding allowed colleges to supply spots to extra youngsters.
The administration additionally budgeted $10 million for a Neighborhood School program to coach college students for metropolis jobs. It enrolled its first 75 college students final fall.
Financial growth
Parker proposed a seize bag of efforts to enhance financial alternative, particularly for folks in deprived communities.
In April she laid out the PHL: Open for Enterprise initiative, which goals to make it simpler for enterprise homeowners to get licenses and permits, and navigate town’s forms. The Commerce Division will finally arrange “a centralized digital platform for companies to entry related sources,” officers mentioned.
Amongst different efforts, she began the method of eliminating four-year diploma necessities for some metropolis jobs, and she or he needs to ease the Civil Service job utility course of with an eye fixed to diversifying town workforce.
Supporting the 76ers’ proposal to construct a brand new enviornment on Market Road was not outstanding amongst her early objectives, however she ended up turning into a vocal backer of the plan, holding city halls across the metropolis to shore up public help and push again in opposition to fierce opposition in Chinatown and different close by neighborhoods. She defended the sector as a low-cost technique to revive Market East and make sure the staff stays in Philadelphia.
Metropolis Council’s approval of the sector legislative package deal in December was arguably the defining second of Parker’s first 12 months in workplace. However lower than a month later, the Sixers introduced they had been abandoning the plan in favor of constructing a brand new stadium with Comcast in South Philly, a growth the mayor described as a “curveball that none of us noticed coming.”
After greater than two years of heated debate and planning, the canceling of the sector left town and Parker again at sq. one with regard to the way forward for the economically stagnant district.