The city of Philadelphia has been governed by Democrats for decades: the last Republican mayor left office while Harry Truman was President of the United States. The Democrats of today, in complete charge of the City of Brotherly Love, have talked a great, great game of taking care of the poor and downtrodden, yet it has to be asked: having talked the talk, have they walked the walk?

Some Philadelphia homeless shelters have gone months or years without being paid by the city

The Office of Homeless Services spent $15 million more than it was budgeted over the last four years, but some nonprofit leaders say during that time, they experienced severe delays in payment.

by Anna Orso | Wednesday, January 17, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving when officials at Gloria’s Place, a West Philadelphia homeless shelter that’s operated for five decades, learned their contract with the city wouldn’t be renewed due to a lack of funding, and the seven families in its care would need to find shelter somewhere else.

That came after Gloria’s Place had for ten months housed dozens of children and adults referred to them by the city — but were not paid the more than $400,000 the city owed them.

Yup, it’s another one of those Philadelphia Inquirer articles limited to subscribers only. I subscribe so that you don’t have to.

Officials at Hope PHL, which operates Gloria’s Place, said the effects of the delays in payment and the abrupt contract cancellation are devastating. The nonprofit is no longer able to bill the city for its services, but two families remain there in the middle of winter with nowhere else to go.

“Those contracts keep real families, youth, and young children housed and safe,” said spokesperson Trish Downey. “Our families at Gloria’s Place are feeling the unfair and life-altering repercussions of these decisions.”

Reporter Anna Orso continued to tell subscribers that there were a half-dozen non-profits which have contracts with the city that saw extended delays in receiving promised payments from the city; it isn’t just Gloria’s Place. The Office of Homeless Services had overspent its budget by $5.1 million just in FY2024 as of mid December, and the city’s inspector general has been looking into it, though, as of the December story, there had been no evidence seen of fraud or self-enrichment in the office’s spending.

Back to the current story:

Jeremy Montgomery, president and CEO of Philly House, the city’s largest and longest-running shelter, said his organization hasn’t been paid by the Office of Homeless Services since 2020 and is owed more than $600,000. (Sherylle) Linton-Jones (of OHS) said the delay is “unrelated to invoicing issues.”

Full disclosure: the hyperlink to Philly House was added by me, and was not part of Miss Orso’s original.

Miss Orso’s story continued to document the delayed payments and some organizational issues, but what caught my eye was not that — I expect delays and incompetence from every government bureaucracy — but what it means for new Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plans to clean up the open-air drug markets and homeless encampments in Kensington. Mrs Mullins said that there would be a 100-day project to come up with the details for her eventual projects, and 100 days from her January 2^nd inauguration is April 11^th, well after the worst of winter weather. Nevertheless, if the city kicks out the however many junkies sleeping on Kensington’s streets from their tents and cardboard boxes and whatever, where are they going to go? If the city can’t keep up with payments to help homeless shelters, how will they be able to accommodate those who had been sleeping “rough”?

The obvious answer is: SEPTA’s subway stations, but that has been a problem as well, one that SEPTA’s overpaid and underperforming CEO Leslie Richards is supposed to be trying to solve. With District Attorney Larry Krasner’s position that drug addiction is a public health, and not crime, problem, putting the junkies in jail isn’t an option.

The Democrats have promised much to help the poor in Philly, and they’ve had the power to put their policies into action, yet what has actually come of it? Philadelphia has the highest poverty rate of America’s ten largest cities, and not just by a little bit. With 22.7% of households at or below the poverty rate, Philly is well above the 19.6% rate in the second city on the list, Houston, Texas. Whatever the city has done has not been working. Whatever the Democrats have promised the poor people of the city has not made them less poor.

I would note here that the second, third, and fourth cities on the list, Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas, are all stuffed to the gills with illegal immigrants, in a way that Philly is not. Texas has seen a flood of poor immigrants in a way that the other cities on that list have not, yet those Lone Star State cities still have less poverty than Philadelphia.

Philly has promised, but Philly hasn’t delivered.