A Million Stories

Thomas Pitilli

When 12 inches of puffy, compactible, play-worthy snow plop down from the sky, it's hard for residents around Baltimore Ave. in West Philadelphia not to feel the sting: a huge swath of Clark Park, the crown jewel of the neighborhood, is shut down for renovations. A gate surrounds part "A" of the park, on 43rd Street between Baltimore and Chester avenues, and a giant yellow sign proudly stating "Another Milestone in Philadelphia's Progress" sits where the entrance once was.

On Monday, the temptation to climb over the 7-foot-high fence must have been great, but as of about 6 p.m., no one had. Not a single footprint dotted the pure-white snow inside.

"It's awful," said a young woman in braids, walking by with her dog, adding, "They've cut down 34 trees. They're putting in more pavement."

Indeed, the renovations — though aimed at providing better drainage, improved paths and more lighting — are the subject of no small controversy. The Clark Park revitalization, which has been in the works for the last 10 years, has drawn criticism from various locals, including eco-artist Aaron Birk, who wrote this September in an e-mail to City Paper and others, "Clark Park is going to be clear-cut in the next day or so. There is now a chain-link construction fence preventing anyone from setting foot in the park," adding, "Let me know if you're interested in helping organize an emerge ncy sit-in. I have a 50-watt megaphone."

But according to the Friends of Clark Park, only 24 trees have been removed and that's because they're old, diseased or invasive.

"These trees were selected for removal after consultation with arborists from the Morris Arboretum," says Brian Siano, vice president of the Friends. "And preserving the tree canopy was one of the most important goals we had."

But both sides can at least agree on one thing: The park is missed.

"It sucks that it's closed," lamented the girl with braids, when, suddenly, a deep voice yelped from the other side of the park — the still-open part "B," known as the Bowl for its concave shape — in a way that means only one thing: sledding.

"I bet the Bowl's still poppin', though," she added.

Sherwood Forest

As the winds picked up and the temperature dropped Monday night, 52-year-old David Brown descended into the city's vast underground subway concourse and, armed with a pile of blankets, set up camp for the night.

He wasn't the only one: The concourse, known to cops and the homeless alike as Sherwood Forest for its maze of pillars and under-the-radar inhabitants, is the nightly place of respite for many of the city's homeless (City Paper first wrote about the de facto homeless encampment in 2008 [Cover Story, "Notes From Underground," Matt Stroud, June 12, 2008].)

While the city's shelters are, indeed, near capacity, Brown's decision to avoid them is his own. Like a lot of longtime-homeless folks — he's been on the streets for 15 years — he avoids the city's shelters whenever possible, preferring his freedom to the rules, restrictions and risks of the shelter system.

And despite a winter initiative to provide extra beds in the cold months, as well as an official citywide "code blue" alert that has outreach teams trolling the city in a special effort to offer shelter to the homeless, some, like Brown, simply decline.

That same night, says Dainette Mintz, director of the city's Office of Supportive Housing, outreach workers made contact with 60 individuals, but wound up transporting only six to facilities offering temporary shelter. Even so, 92 out of 110 spots at the city's homeless "cafés" — bare-bones operations aimed at the chronically homeless who refuse to enter the formal shelter system — were occupied that night. In all, OSH-contracted facilities housed 2,710 people across the city on Monday.

The choice to go it alone comes, Brown concedes, with its own perils — the latest among them, he says, being high school kids who've been coming through and abusing sleeping homeless people.

"When they come off school, they'll throw bottles at you, throw water on you, kick you," Brown says. "Last night they just kicked a guy, two young kids kicked a guy right in the head and threw a bottle at him. ... Now you got to sleep with one eye open and one eye closed."

But even beyond that threat, Brown has a particularly strong aversion to shelters, he says, because of his health condition: He has AIDS, and that makes things more complicated still. To fight the disease, Brown consumes a daily cocktail of drugs: "When I'm out here, I take it at the right time. ... When I go to the Ridge shelter, they take my medication, and they give it you when they want to give it to you," he explains. "And they tell the people in there that I've got full-blown AIDS. ... Then guys think they can catch it just by sleeping by me or taking a shower behind me."

And so Brown prefers to keep to himself. "They put you out at 7 o'clock in the morning, then I go in the Gallery or I walk around. ... The hard thing is finding something to eat. Soup kitchens close at a certain time, and when you're tired you just can't always catch them."

—Isaiah Thompson

In the Cold

On a related note, Mayor Michael Nutter was paid a surprise visit last week by activists with the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP Philadelphia, who showed up at the mayor's house on Dec. 22 to give His Honor a hearty, if unconventional, caroling.

"We wish you would fund AIDS housing (3x), so we won't get sick," went one verse.

ACT UP is known for adding dramatic flare to its actions — but the group is deadly serious about its mission to advocate for people with AIDS, and has taken an increasingly aggressive stand on the issue of homeless people with AIDS in particular over the last year.

According to a recent report by ACT UP, the number of people on a city-managed waiting list for AIDS-specific housing assistance is growing. And while the shelter system itself may have capacity, advocates agree with David Brown that shelters are not good places for people with AIDS. Eight people with HIV, meanwhile, died in the streets or in the shelter system in the past 18 months.

"Had they been housed, and had a place to take medication," says ACT UP member Jose DeMarco, " they wouldn't be dead."

In November, ACT UP joined other advocates and students to stage a "die in" in front of City Hall as part of their campaign to persuade Nutter to set aside $2 million to $4 million — no small sum — for permanent housing for people with AIDS. The mayor did, in fact, meet with the group, but, DeMarco says, made no promises.

Mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald tells CP, "We've barely begun the budget process. ... It's a long way from being able to say what will happen.

"It's their job to argue for what they believe in," he adds. "But the mayor has huge competing interests to balance."

The group intends to ramp up pressure in anticipation of the mayor's proposed budget, in which they still hope to see the funds.

"Comcast gets big tax breaks," says DeMarco. "How about giving human beings a break?"

—I.T.