In Tent City, despair and an unshakable habit

Eddie awoke on a broken piece of wood. He had set it out the night before in one of the better places to sleep in Tent City, next to Jose's shack, where men shoot heroin through the day and into the night, and away from the rats that swarm the mountains of trash lining the slope to the railroad bed.

Jose Santiago built his shack five years ago from crates, tarps, and beer boxes. It is one of the standing structures in the camp. It has a patch of soiled rug and piping to collect rainwater. Most of the 60 or so men who live in this clearing by the freight tracks in Fairhill sleep on the ground, like Eddie. Or on dirty mattresses. Or in sleeping bags or tents. Or lie like cordwood on a narrow wedge of concrete under the railroad bridge.

With his badly abscessed ankle, Jose cannot venture far from his shack. His ankle has festered for months - the infection caused either by dirty needles or by bacteria pushed under his skin through the puncture of a syringe. Jose needs a hospital. Surgery.

Eddie needed a fix. He slept huddled with the loop of cable he carries for protection. Originally from Puerto Rico, Eddie, 33, lost his family through his addiction, and his wife left him.

He has HIV. He has not seen a doctor in three years - as long as he has lived in Tent City. His body aches. And now, in the thrall of his need, he was nauseated.

He prepared his needle. If the heroin was not cut too much, he could get through the day with five injections. If the heroin circulating in the camp Thursday morning was weak, he would need double.

As Eddie injected himself, Tent City came alive around him.

Addicts have lived along the railroad tracks in Fairhill for decades. It is no secret, but it feels like one.

Every few years, usually around election time, residents say, city and state officials cycle through with promises to help the people living in the squalor - and to bring relief to those living in the already-suffering neighborhood surrounding the encampment and drug market.

But the camp remains. Men like Jose build shacks. Men and women walk down the slope each day, all day.

From the outside, the solution may seem simple: Kick them out, build a barrier, and make sure they never come back.

But walk among the shacks, where even the presence of strangers does not keep people from shooting heroin or freebasing cocaine, and it's clear there is no simple fix.

If you kick them out, where will they go?

You cannot compel people into recovery. Many of the residents came to Philadelphia from Puerto Rico through unregulated recovery programs that eventually kicked them out, advocates say. Some wind up in Tent City without ID, money, or any way of getting home.

Drugs are everywhere in the neighborhood.

Police raid the camp, dish out trespassing citations, and make arrests for possession or old warrants. They collect bodies when people overdose. By the time they get back to the station house, the place is bustling again.

The people in the camp aren't driving the crime rates in the stricken neighborhood around Second and Indiana.

"Do I want to see any human being living in that condition? No," said Capt. Michael Cram, commander of the 25th Police District. But he says police get more complaints about drug corners that keep families trapped in their homes, and shootings that keep children from sleeping in front bedrooms in fear of stray bullets. The neighborhood worries about more, he said, than people down by the railroad.

The city says it needs help from the state and the federal government. And everyone agrees that it has been hard to get Conrail, which owns the stretch of tracks near the camp, to the table.

The company, through a spokesman, said it was not aware of any complaints.

The city's Office of Addiction Services works to get people into detox, said Roland Lamb, its director.

But these, he said, are stopgap measures.

If Tent City is to be taken down for good, what's needed is a collaborative, multiagency effort that combines security with social services.

This is what Quetcy Lozada has been telling people for years - telling anyone who will listen.

Problem is, no one is listening.

"Every time someone comes down here, they are shocked by what they see," says Lozada, chief of staff for Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez. "There is a response of 'Yes, we have to do something,' but then it always comes back to zero getting done."

Lozada has come to the railroad tracks for years, bringing city officials, police, and anyone she thinks can help. On Thanksgiving, she even brings her family. They hand out food and blankets. Once, she asked one of the men why they weren't more wary of outsiders.

"We're not afraid of you," he replied, "because a lot of us started out looking just like you."

There is a rhythm to the place. In the mornings, the commuters come. Whites from the suburbs. Construction workers and laborers who need a fix to get through the day. Men like James, 23, who is originally from Glenside but now lives in Olney with his crack-addicted father. He came to the camp Thursday to shoot heroin in between cleaning gutters. He never sleeps there, he said. He is too afraid.

Zolio Marte, 50, served in the Marines, but he says the months he spent in the camp, he slept with "one eye open and one hand on a gun or knife."

"It's a living hell," he said.

Each day, Daniel, 24, takes the 23 Bus from Mount Airy, where he lives with his parents, who he says believe he is clean. To get high, he sells pots and pans and other items from his parents' house. "I try not to take anything they use," he said.

Eddie does not like to steal either. But he feels he has no choice sometimes.

To hustle for his highs, he will ask the neighborhood car guys if he can help. Or ask one of the corner boys if he can get a day's work selling.

But if he begins to feel sick from want, then he shoplifts items like shampoo or deodorant and sells or trades them in the camp. It makes him feel ashamed, he said through Lozada, who interpreted his Spanish.

He was trying to figure out how to get his next high the other afternoon when a group of elected officials approached the camp. They were there as part of a tour led by State Rep. Angel Cruz, who spent most of his time criticizing a needle-exchange program that provides clean syringes. That argument seems to miss the bigger point: that people living in the clearing should be the priority - not their needles.

Eddie had visited the needle exchange just a day earlier. He had collected more than 1,000 used needles from the camp, he said. They gave him 500 new ones in return. Now, he looked confused at the sight of the politicians. They wanted to help, they said.

They asked him what he needed. He asked whether they could do something about the trash - and the rats.

They entered Jose's shack. He pulled down his sock to show them his wound. At first, someone tried to give him the number of an office to call for insurance, but City Health Commissioner Arthur Evans said Jose needed an ambulance instead.

But he would not go.

"Mañana," he said, nodding off.

A call went up as ward leader Carlos Matos offered to drive people to rehab. About a dozen people raised their hands, while many more ignored the offer.

Earlier, Eddie had spoken of the woman he had lost. How when he was clean, they would start their day together. And how when he fell into addiction, he would throw a little water on his face and leave the house early for the street. How she slowly let him leave for good.

Now, he raised his hand. Then he darted into Jose's shack for one last fix. He grabbed his cable, the one he uses for protection, and gave it to a friend who would need it now more than he did.

But the next day, Eddie made his way back to the camp.

215-854-2759@MikeNewall