Tension Continues To Build At Homeless Encampment Along Parkway Day After Eviction Deadline - CBS Philly

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – New video overnight from the Ben Franklin Parkway shows protesters running off with metal police barricades and taking them into the homeless encampments. So far, the city has not enforced the eviction deadline for the three encampments.

There has been no real movement from city authorities overnight to end the Parkway encampment. In fact, the only real movement is coming from people who are still there placing more barricades and pallets in front of the encampment along the Ben Franklin Parkway.

The city’s latest deadline for eviction has long come and gone. It was set for 9 a.m. Wednesday. The people living at the encampment say they’re not leaving but the mayor says they can’t stay.

Eyewitness News was at 22nd Street and the Parkway early Thursday morning as people supporting the homeless encampment fortified their position along the Ben Franklin Parkway. This nearly 24 hours after the city’s latest eviction notice was ignored by three homeless encampments across Philadelphia.

Three times the city has set a deadline for the encampments to pack up and leave. Three times organizers have vowed to stay.

“Unfortunately, as many of you saw firsthand, protest camp leaders refuse to allow those conducting outreach efforts into the camps,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said.

The Kenney administration says it spent the past two months meeting with organizers but no agreement has been reached. The mayor now says he won’t commit to a specific time for an eviction.

“Something’s going to happen, at some point in time, shortly. It’s just that we are trying to get — look, if we had gone in there day one and cleared the place out, violently, physically, you would be asking me why we did that. So now we’re trying to do it in a way where no one gets hurt and people get served and now that’s not fast enough,” Kenney said.

Neighbors who live along the parkway understand the need for low to no income housing in the city, but many say the encampments have become unsanitary and unsafe.

Eyewitness News cameras were rolling Wednesday as an all-out brawl broke out at the Parkway encampment.

“It’s my personal opinion that the homeless right now are being exploited by other interests,” one resident said.

But the message at the encampment has been clear from the start in June.

“We want affordable, safe, accessible, permanent housing,” a protestor said.

City leaders say many of the homeless who once lived there have been relocated.

Organizers, though, say that’s not enough.

After that missed deadline, the mayor is no longer detailing exactly how or when this eviction would take place.

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Tension Continues To Build At Homeless Encampment Along Parkway Day After Eviction Deadline - CBS Philly
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