Two Sides of the Street

Los Angeles learned that lesson the hard way. Last year it settled a federal lawsuit by agreeing not to enforce its statute banning sleeping or lying in public spaces. The homeless may remain on the streets until the city builds 1,250 units of low-cost housing with related services.

A decades-old sidewalk ordinance in Philadelphia makes it illegal to live in public space. But Nutter recognizes that the city can't force people off the streets without giving them someplace to go.

"We will have to build our way out of this particular problem," Nutter said.

That may mean more units of supportive housing for the chronically homeless. Or it may mean more affordable housing for families languishing in shelters, who have to compete with all the working poor of the city even for public housing. The Philadelphia Housing Authority already has 48,000 families waiting for subsidized homes.

For the moment, the city's approach is to ramp up outreach efforts while making encamping in certain areas less comfortable.

Police regularly tell people in problem spots - such as the grassy area at 15th and Vine Streets and the wall of the Youth Study Center on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway - to clear out. Once the homeless are given notice, city workers, with police standing by, collect the trash, debris and personal items left behind.

But those efforts usually affect only the most visible encampments - not every backstreet in the city.

Paul Levy, president of the Center City District, the agency created in 1991 with a surcharge on downtown property owners to improve safety and cleanliness, said complaints about encampments in alleyways like Moravian came in daily.

Center City District crews, which are on the streets every day, are often redispatched to keep the residue from the street homeless under control.

Levy acknowledged that the presence of increasingly large groups of homeless people on Center City streets undermined the district's efforts to make Philadelphia's downtown attractive to visitors, businesses, prospective residents and investors.

But he also said the city's homeless outreach efforts, as humane and laudable as they are, ultimately persuaded only 27 percent of the long-term street residents to go into shelters.

"There is a total reluctance to . . . say this individual is unable to make a decision in their own best interest. Therefore, we need some form of public authority" to do that, Levy said.

The only time that happens, he said, is when the temperature becomes life threatening.

"I continue for 10 years to ask the question," Levy continued. "We know that the mortality rate among these individuals is significantly higher. We don't want them to die quickly.

"Are we really prepared to allow them to die slowly?"

A few hours of comfort

On a rainy Saturday, the big community room at the First Baptist Church on Moravian Street is warm and inviting.

About two dozen men and women have come in from the cold, greeted by the smell of hot turkey meat loaf, ham and chicken, and the sight of smiling women spooning out pasta, potato salad and vegetables.

Last August - when others were complaining about street people - the congregation opened its doors to them.