'Worst Health Crisis This Generation Has Ever Seen': Officials Detail Efforts To Battle Opioid Crisis In Philadelphia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Philadelphia city leaders released a progress report Wednesday morning detailing costly efforts to stabilize what is the city's ground zero of the opioid epidemic: the Kensington and Fairhill sections of the city.
"Between the death rate, the quality of life issues that have come with it and all that the epicenter is in Kensington and Fairhill and the challenge is that the people who are living there are facing on a day-to-day basis, not just when we started this back in October, but today, are tremendous," Managing Director Brian Abernathy said.
The stepped-up emergency response is called the Philadelphia Resilience Project. To date, the city has uprooted two massive encampments, removed 600 abandoned cars, picked up 25,000 needles and collected 400 tons of trash.
Fatal overdoses in the area are down 8% in 2018 and officials say that is the result of the response. But most pressing continues to be the death rate and quality of life in Kensington and Fairhill.
"The opioid crisis is probably the worst health crisis certainly this generation has ever seen," Abernathy said.
Mayor Jim Kenney will sign an executive order extending the Philadelphia Resilience Project through Dec. 31.
