The 'Trumpesque' Democratic mayor who's finally tackling the drugs apocalypse ravaging her Blue city

Zombie-like fentanyl users still stumble through its needle-strewn parks, but, apparently, this woe-begotten suburb of Philadelphia is getting better.

At least, that's the message from Mayor Cherelle Parker, who opened a 'wellness court' last month to get more addicts off the blighted streets of Kensington.

Campaigners criticize her tribunal, saying it fast-tracks users into rehab without tackling the poverty and mental health issues that underpin their problems.

But Parker is a tough-on-crime Democrat who defies her party's progressives, earning her the moniker 'Trumpesque' during her election campaign in 2023.

And the mood has changed since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, giving officials in blue cities cover to get tougher on drugs, gangs, and homelessness.

For long-suffering residents of northeast Philadelphia, change could not come fast enough.

Dianne Hoffmann, executive director of Mother of Mercy House, peers through her office window onto East Allegheny Avenue and counts a dozen addicts on the chilly corner outside.

'We are on the front lines here,' Hoffmann told DailyMail.com.

'Our new mayor came in last year really wanting to help, which is phenomenal, and she's doing the best she can.'

Her Catholic charity doles out food to the hungry and homeless, but there's been no let up in demand.

Some days, a surge in policing appears to have made the streets safer, she adds. 

But not today.

'It's an overwhelming problem. [Parker] has a lot in front of her,' she said.

Hoffman's run-down area of open-air drug markets became a portrait of America at its darkest.

It's thoroughfare, Kensington Avenue, was dubbed the 'street of lost souls and forgotten dreams', such was the scale of desperation and human wreckage on display.

Drug addicts and prostitutes were seen slipping needles into their necks while sheltered under elevated train tracks.

Large groups took over the sidewalks, turning them into homeless encampments where people lived in their own filth.

Emaciated homeless people were passed out in the street next to empty bottles and plastic bags.

The sidewalks were more reminiscent of a scene from the Walking Dead than a bustling metro.

It was a 'ground zero' for the region's opioid crisis, a pocket of post-apocalyptic carnage nestled between more affluent and cozy areas nearby.

The chaos was fueled by the rise of the drug Xylazine, or 'tranq' - a lethal sedative used to boost the effects of heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.

Things got so bad that foreign governments used footage of Kensington's wretches in ad campaigns to scare their own young people off drugs.

Casey O'Donnell, the boss of Impact Services, a local non-profit, said it had become an 'international embarrassment'.

Residents said they'd been abandoned by the city.

Some confronted junkies on their doorsteps, asking, and even begging them to move, so kids could play outside safely.

'There are great families that live behind the doors, but most of them aren't wealthy enough to leave,' said Hoffmann.

'It's such an amazing cluster of everything that's wrong.'

Against this miserable backdrop, Parker easily beat her Democratic opponents in a May 2023 primary, by pledging to hire more cops and restore order.

A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist called her 'Trumpesque' for her uncompromising approach.

After taking office last January, she hired 75 police officers for the streets of Kensington, where she quashed homeless encampments, and increased narcotics arrests.

Then in November, voters again vented their frustration about social problems, immigration, and the economy by electing Trump.

The Republican flipped Pennsylvania, and made gains in liberal-leaning Philadelphia.

He even picked up five wards in the city, including the 45th, which abuts Kensington.

Parker says she's willing to work with Trump and has even offered to have a sit-down with him.

The day after he was sworn in for a second term, Parker signed an executive order to open a weekly 'neighborhood wellness court' in Kensington.

She called it an unprecedented step 'to restore community and a quality of life' in a neglected area overrun by open-air drug trading.

Philadelphia residents must stop 'closing our eyes real tight, trying to wish what we are seeing in front of our very eyes away,' she added.

Cops now sweep through Kensington each Wednesday.

They have new powers to pick up those committing summary offenses - including disorderly conduct, public drunkenness and criminal trespass - as well as more serious offenses, such as drug possession.

Under the scheme, they can then be fast-tracked through the wellness court to have warrant issues cleared and diverted into a treatment program instead of spending days or weeks in jail.

It's too early to say whether the pilot initiative is working.

According to reports, it's only led to three arrests so far, of which two people took the treatment option.

But opponents to the scheme were fighting it even before the first cases were heard.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says it singles out people in Kensington for a different type of justice than is dispensed even a mile down the road.

Those picked up by police are fast-tracked into treatment programs, often without getting a chance to discuss their options properly with a lawyer.

ACLU staff attorney Solomon Furious Worlds says the system encourages cops to pull out their handcuffs.

'Instead of the strong norm being to not arrest, the strong norm is to arrest,' he told Kensington Voice.

A year into Parker's leadership, and there are signs of progress.

DailyMail.com this week saw more cops on the streets, road crews clearing up needle-strewn grassy areas, and metal barricades along sidewalks that were once homeless encampments.

And yet, in doorways, parks and outside derelict buildings, drug users are still seen, often doubled over - a pitiful stance known as the 'fentanyl fold'.

An Inquirer investigation in December revealed that shootings dropped to a decade low in 2024, with just 58 incidents, compared to 210 in 2022.

But that was part of a broader decline in gun violence. 

The quality of life crimes and nuisances that plagued Kensington did not appear to be getting any better.

Though Kensington Avenue and other nearby hotspots had improved, the homelessness and drugs likely just moved on to less visible areas nearby.

For Hoffmann, there are no quick fixes for Kensington, where decades of neglect, failed policing, and political missteps brought the neighborhood to a breaking point.

Extra cops and wellness courts help around the edges, but 30-day rehab programs struggle to turn around homeless addicts, she said.

It takes a lot longer to fix someone with mental health problems who's cut off from their family and can't hold down a job.

'No one out there is happy. They're very sick, and most of them are sad,' Hoffmann said.

'You can't just arrest them and say: 'Do better.' The wraparound care they need is a long, and very expensive process.'