This time around, Parker has outdone herself in her plots against the drug-using community. Her budget has earmarked $100 million to create a facility to treat Substance Use Disorder. Dubbed the “Riverview Wellness Village,” This creation will provide treatment, job training, Medication Assisted Treatments such as methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, and housing for homeless drug users.
In reality, this deceptively named facility will be a prison for drug users. It will be built directly next to the Riverside Correctional Facility, the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, the Philadelphia Detention Center, and the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center.
The facility will act as a center for people seeking or being forced to get treatment, with the administration admitting outright that some people would not be there voluntarily. Mayor Parker claimed that the facility would not “criminalize addiction,” but also said that she would not hide from the fact that it would be a “secure” facility, codeword for prison-light.
Mike Driscoll, a member of the NIMBY [Not in my back yard] anti-drug user force known as the Kensington Caucus, has openly admitted it would be a “secure prison complex.”