In one of the nation’s largest opioid epidemic, New Kensington Community Development Corporation Executive Director Bill McKinney shined light on community projects that have happened to revitalize the destitute neighborhood amidst a slowing open-air drug market.

The City of Philadelphia won a $20 million settlement earlier this year, of which 7.5 million was allocated to Kensington. The disbursements from the settlement and other settlements over the span of 18 years, Mckinney says, will establish a precedent of intervention and prevention for future policies.

The money endowed for Kesington helped basic home repair, eviction and foreclosure prevention, increasing green spaces and public schools.

“We work a lot with housing, counseling, housing, education around financial literacy, all those pieces. To date, we’ve done over 200 or so eviction foreclosures in this very small area, where in the past we may have done 30 or 40 a year. Because of these resources, we’re almost getting into a tenfold type of situation,” said McKinney.

Six Kensington public schools were funded $300,000 respectively and community members were able to input what they wanted to see changed or amended in their own backyards. McKinney states how McPherson Square park, a once destitute green space untenable by the city, was targeted by local residents to bring back a family-friendly hub there and surrounding parks and gardens as well.

“To be able to say, “Hey, let’s come together. You have a hundred thousand dollars to spend.” That brings more people to the table and it keeps people engaged. Folks have done everything for beautification projects in their parks – because it’s just basic structure,” said McKinney.

“It could be fencing. It could be signs. It could be playground equipment to support and pay for the different programs that are taking place in those spaces and the different materials that are needed for that – and people are then engaging in these spaces.”

McKinney then explains how they are in the process of being affordable homes, too. 44 units will soon be unveiled to the public for sale. He coupled how while they are aiming to not only assign space for affordable housing but prevent evictions and foreclosures by flipping already vacant parcels of property.

“If the funds are there through resources. Those are the types of things that fight displacement, home repair. It makes you throw away that postcard saying, “we’ll buy your house for cash,” and all of a sudden we’re starting to get to scale. That’s why we need to be really creative about all the tools that we’re going to use to make sure that we can keep people in their homes. It’s everything right now.”

You can listen to the full details of Kensington’s revitalization with NKCDC on SoundCloud with the track below.