Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden visited Philadelphia to rally the troops in the city behind his agenda and to criticize Republicans, calling the GOP the biggest threat to Democracy. While in town, the President did not mention or visit the nation’s largest open-air heroin market, the Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington.
Does Joe Biden really care about what’s happening in Philadelphia, particularly in Kensington?
A drive through Kensington feels like a drive through the zombie apocalypse and you’ll soon see that voter-ID laws aren’t the greatest threat to the residents of Philadelphia. The increase in violent crime, homelessness, and out-of-control drug use in Kensington are far greater threats to residents of Philadelphia.
Kim Gary shared a video drive-through of Kensington that will leave you speechless that city Democrats are ignoring the real problems in their city.
“Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas,” Kim Gary wrote. “Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015.2 A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.”
“Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia.3 Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic,” they continued. “Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids2 and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids.4 With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem.”
And to think, the President of the United States was just here and his takeaway was a political attack on the GOP.
