Drug users sometimes take drugs without knowing they're laced with xylazine. The animal sedative can literally eat users flesh.Carpenter, whose nonprofit provides resources to homeless people,
"The organizations that are out here, the nonprofits, the groups, the harm reduction advocates that are out here doing what we're doing every day, I think we're filling a huge void that the city has left," the Philly Unknown Project director said."The city is not filling those voids where they should."
Carpenter, a local nonprofit director in Philadelphia, provides resources to the homeless. He opened a garden in Kensington to provide a safe space for struggling drug users to heal away from the chaos a block away. He also wheels around food and other necessities to give to people living on the streets.
"City officials stay as far away from Kensington as possible unless there's a photo op," he said."The city officials, especially Mayor Kenney, have forgotten that … every life that's been taken down here through an overdose, whatever has happened, is somebody's somebody."