“There’s something special about when the community has empowerment to make change,” said Chantay Love, the Director of the nonprofit Every Murder is Real (EMIR). “But they have to be able to have the resources to make that happen.” 

EMIR received a $760,000 grant as part of the program, which will enable them to expand their trauma-informed services to more of those devastated in the wake of gun violence. ‘EMIR’ has a double meaning as an acronym; it’s also meant to honor Love’s brother, Emir Greene, who was lost to gun violence on March 26, 1997 at just 20 years old. 

“There’s a hierarchy of homicide,” said Love, who said her family had extensive difficulty finding support services of all kinds after Emir’s murder. “That made us decide that everybody should be served. The people that are left behind are collateral damage, and they should not be judged based on what might have occurred.” 

According to Love, the number of individuals EMIR served during the pandemic inflated by 200%, a dramatic surge correlated with the rise in gun violence over the same period of time in Philadelphia and across the country. 

Data from the office of  the City Controller  details a 40% increase in homicides from 2019 to 2020. Thus far in 2021, there have been 435 homicides – 14% more than this time last year – and over 1,700 shooting victims in total. 

“This is a moral thing,” said Love.  “Leaders on the ground should be funded to do this type of work, because most of the time, they’re doing it out of their heart and passion. They’re not going to leave, no matter who’s elected or running for office.” 

Philadelphia has been criticized for not treating the gun violence epidemic with the urgency community members believe is necessary. Though 2021’s city budget dedicates the most money on record to address gun violence, only $68 million represents new spending. 

Atif Bostic, Executive Director of Uplift Workforce Solutions, councils a young member of the program. Uplift Workforce Solutions received a $150,000 grant as part of Philadelphia’s new anti-violence program. Photo courtesy of Uplift Workforce Solutions

Atif Bostic, another Philadelphia native, is the Executive Director of Uplift Workforce Solutions, which received a $150,000 grant. The nonprofit supports formerly incarcerated juveniles in their reintegration process by developing skills that make them attractive candidates and help them remain employed once a job is secured. 

“How do we make sure they’re successful, and that we don’t have to ever see them again? Not that we don’t want to – we just don’t want to bring them back into the system,” said Bostic. 

He believes that focusing solely on job placement would set the young people they serve up for failure.  

“We look at the root causes of why people go into crime and why those who are incarcerated recidivate, and try to drill down on those areas,” said Bostic. “Because a lot of times, this population is relegated to neighborhoods that are under resourced, low access, and are over policed.”

Uplift takes a comprehensive approach to workforce development, including support navigating services for housing and childcare, cognitive behavioral therapy, organizing cohorts to reinforce positive relationships, and weekly stipends.

“We’re aiming for sustainability, and the first part of that is creating stability,” said Bostic. “And once we connect them to their future selves, we’re able to move them away from their past behavior.”

The $22 million earmarked for nonprofits combating gun violence specifically represents a dramatic increase in direct aid from previous initiatives, like the $700,000 in grants awarded by the city in 2019. 

Philadelphia hopes to award the remaining grants by mid-November, with a total of 212 nonprofits in contention for capacity-altering funding. Additional first round grant recipients include:

• New Options More Opportunities will receive $1 million to open a neighborhood service location in South Philadelphia, which will also provide housing for youth to combat youth homelessness. 
• ManUpPHL’ received a  $242,768 grant to expand their mentoring program for young men between the ages of 18 and 35. 
• Beyond the Bars, a nonprofit that uses youth music programming as a way to mitigate violence, will use their $117,150 grant to build eight full recording studios throughout the city. 

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Anyone familiar with Philadelphia knows Kensington Avenue as an open-air drug market. Tucked under the elevated train tracks in North Philadelphia, business is open, even in the pouring rain on a recent Sunday afternoon. Nearly every drug, including heroin, fentanyl, marijuana, K2, and benzos, can be bought under the dingy underpass, in front of rundown stores and corners piled high with garbage.

Despite the occasional presence of a police car, dealers sold openly, ducking under awnings and in doorways — avoiding the rain, not law enforcement. Users didn’t even bother to go behind closed doors before cooking and injecting their drugs, completely unconcerned with anyone who might be watching.

While the opioid crisis in Philadelphia has been a status quo for years, this endless drug use is causing a new problem: an increase in HIV rates for the first time since the mid-2000s.

“We don’t need another health epidemic. We have enough with addiction,” said Carol Rochuster, founder of Angels in Motion, an advocacy organization that does outreach and policy work for those who use drugs. Seven years ago, her own son was living on Kensington Avenue, trapped in his own addiction. He’s currently in recovery, but the isolation and conditions on Kensington Avenue inspired her to start talking to those on the streets and try to help. Since then, she’s spent almost every day since then working with opioid users, offering counsel and conversation, helping them find spots in treatment centers, and generally doing everything she can to help put a dent in Philadelphia’s opioid epidemic.

A woman with track marks on her legs runs past another man on Kensington Avenue, Philadelphia. Photo by Kerry Breen.

“Just last week, one of my people said to me ‘I just [tested] positive for HIV.’ It is increasing. It’s just a small percentage, but it is still an increase – it hasn’t increased in years, and now all of a sudden it’s increasing. That could spiral out of control.”

The increases have been small so far, according to James Garrow, Director of Communications at Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health. Diagnoses in the city were decreasing until 2016, when there were 27 diagnoses of HIV among those who use drugs. From 2016 to 2018, the number more than doubled, with 59 new diagnoses among people who inject drugs. The amount may be small, but Garrow describes it as an “outbreak.”

The Trump administration has announced a plan to combat HIV, with the goal of almost completely eliminating the illness by 2030. The plan would target 48 counties where HIV is spread at the highest rate, including Philadelphia, as well as focusing on seven states that have high rates of HIV in rural areas. The plan will have almost 300 million in funding, which is one of the largest increases in HIV funding. However, advocates and experts worry that the plan falls short, and will not reach the people who need it most, including those in Kensington.

“There needs to be a lot more consideration of ‘How do we reach to that set of people that isn’t just able to engage in the healthcare system as easily?’,” said William McColl, the Vice President for

Policy and Advocacy at AIDS United, an organization that works to end AIDS in the United States. “Homelessness is a primary example, but also people who are involved with drug use, that aren’t necessarily seeing [doctors]. I do think they’re going to have their work cut out for them in reaching all of the people that truly need to be reached.”

Garrow is also concerned that President Trump’s other healthcare policies might affect the access that would be necessary for this plan.

“What’s been proposed isn’t really new, and the administration’s assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would probably undercut any gains,” he said. “Health insurance is necessary for many people to get the care that they need to treat HIV infection and prevent the infection from spreading to others.”

Other proposed plans have included safe injection sites and needle exchange programs, but these plans have received significant amounts of backlash. Safehouse, a safe injection site that would operate in Kensington, has been tied up in legal battles with the federal government, and needle exchange programs are not the most popular solutions.

Carol Rochuster, founder of Angels in Motion, an advocacy organization that does outreach and policy work for those who use drugs, sits in the Fishtown Diner. Photo by Kerry Breen.

There’s also a focus on clean equipment, even among the trash-ridden streets of Kensington. Groups like Rochuster’s Angels in Motion do their best to provide not just clean needles and cookers, but also information on why using it is important.

“If you don’t keep people alive, they can’t make it to recovery,” said Rochuster, whose organization has begun doing mobile needle exchanges to reach as much of the city as possible. “HIV has increased in the city, and the access to needles hasn’t. They’re still in one location, but South Philly needs it, Northeast Philly needs it, Southwest — they all need access to free needles. You need clean needles. And not just needles – supplies, cookers, you need everything.”

Beyond these efforts, Philadelphia is already doing many of the things the administration’s plan outlines, including funding programs and outreach efforts.

“We are expanding syringe exchanges, working to increase access to PrEP, and working to link people who inject drugs to medical car to ensure viral suppression,” said Garrow. Rochuster says that in her own advocacy, she focuses on making sure that the people she talks to know how important HIV medications can be.

Even with the efforts of health departments and harm reductionists, Kensington seems as stricken as ever. Dealers huddle under the awnings of drug stores and takeout Chinese restaurants; an encampment filled with users sits directly across from a mobile unit run by Prevention Point, another organization that does outreach with opioid users. A police car with its sirens off drives across the intersection, not even acknowledging the open sale and use of drugs.

Despite the police presence, crime rates in Kensington are high, and drug sales and use continue with little enforcement. Photo by Kerry Breen.

However, to Rostucher, the solution is not to abandon areas that seem hopeless, but to keep trying, to break through the barriers of stigma and isolation that surround such neighborhoods.

“I started this because of my son. I would go down to find him. I just wanted him to know I loved him. While going down and looking for him, I saw so many lost individuals, so many lost souls,” she said. “And then I realized that the isolation is just feeding this disease. The more I went down, the more I could see — the isolation just took people down deeper into their addiction, and they were so alone, and they just keep going deeper.”

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Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman (far right) and Barbara Laker (second from right) rejoice with city editors Yvette Ousley and Gar Joseph. they won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. April 12, 2010 (Photo by Sarah J. Glover)

At a moment when cries about the end of journalism reach a high pitch, two local tabloid reporters in Philadelphia demonstrate that gumshoe reporting is still alive and more relevant than ever. Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Lake’s “Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love” is a first hand account of two reporters efforts to uncover wrongdoing in the local narcotics unit. Through their work, Ruderman and Laker prove to pessimists that traditional newspaper reporting still has a place in the changing field of journalism.

The opening lines of “Busted” read like a thriller novel. In a short 242 pages, authors Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, two intrepid investigative reporters with the Philadelphia Daily News, bring readers into the darkest corners of the city where the line blurs between crime and crime fighting. Immediately Ruderman and Lake drop us into the life of Ventura “Benny” Martinez, a former confidential informant for a corrupt Philadelphia narcotics officer who becomes a major source, at a point where the fear for his own life drives him to seek help from these two reporters. “His pudgy, sweaty fingers gripped the handle of a .44 Ruger equipped with an infrared laser to illuminate whoever would be coming for him,” they write. Through the story of uncovering a trail of police misconduct, Ruderman and Laker shed light on a newspaper industry at the brink of collapse, the balance between motherhood and reporting and the stubborn brotherhood that kept corrupt police protected from justice.

In “Busted”, Ruderman and Laker become characters in their own story. Laker, a “sweetheart” who was “oblivious to her ability to make men’s heads turn,” and Ruderman, a “crass” and “pint-size” reporter, become our heroines. They take us into the dusty bowels of the city’s court records where they shuffled through hundreds of search warrants with Laker in “knee high leather boots.” We walk with them from home to home looking for past informants, at one point Laker retelling her account of how she was slapped by Tiffany, another confidential informant. Multiple times through the book, we share their moments of giddiness and excitement as one tip leads to another sordid detail in this network of crooked cops terrorizing the city.

The most novel moments come during the authors’ honest portraits of how they struggled to balance motherhood, dating and reporting. These points in the book remind readers that reporters are not machines, but people who share some of the same insecurities and fears as others. Ruderman describes her son’s jabs at his mom over his frustration that she barely was home. At one point when Karl, Ruderman’s husband, went to the grocery and left Ruderman with her two boys, one asked, “Mom, are you babysitting us?” Laker’s story about how her marriage crumbled before she began her reporting that would lead to a Pulitzer Prize adds depth and sincerity to her character as a relentless reporter.

Their story is as much about their pursuit to root out police who terrorize the community they are charged to protect as the role that “traditional” journalism continues to play in our society. This sub-plot put their reporting in context with the times. As the two reporters pursued a Pulitzer Prize winning story, the edifice of journalism crumbled around them. But the story doesn’t end on a pessimistic note. Instead, it will leave readers with a taste of Ruderman and Lake’s infectious courage and how that courageous reporting will never die, but continue to reinvent itself through new institutions.

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Inside this wooden container sits the flag that covered Johnny Kihm's casket when his body arrived at Dover Air Force base. Photo by Chris Palmer.

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Cecelia Kihm’s life changed the day that two strangers knocked on her front door.

It was April 19, 2011. Kihm, 51, a freckled, sandy-haired pre-school teacher, was at home in her green-carpeted living room watching the television show “Ellen.”

She opened the door to two Army soldiers, standing in uniform on the concrete steps in front of her brick rowhome in the Castor Gardens section of Philadelphia.

“When I looked at them, heat just went down my body,” she said.

Her baby-faced 19-year old son, Johnny, had deployed to Afghanistan a month earlier. Several members of his unit had died already, including three that week.

She invited the soldiers in. After taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts, she asked them to deliver the news.

Her son was dead, they said. Killed in combat.

During sleepless nights since Johnny had enlisted, Kihm told herself that if this day ever came, she wouldn’t react like characters do in movies. No violent crying, no denial, no hitting the messenger.

But she was overridden with grief. She kept saying, “It’s too soon. It’s too soon.”

She went upstairs to tell her oldest daughter, Marybeth, who was 24 at the time.

“I didn’t even know how to say it,” Kihm said.

Her husband John, just returning from work, collapsed in agony when he saw the two men in his living room. He cried on the adjacent dining room floor.

And Kihm’s middle child, daughter Meghan, who was then 21, threw up after she was told.

“It was horrible,” Kihm said.

This scene – a family torn apart by news of a young soldier’s untimely death – is not uncommon. As of April 28, 2012, nearly 6,500 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan since the Afghan War began in 2001. Thousands more have died in non-hostile situations, through circumstances like training exercises, illness, or by suicide.

But all military families who lose a loved one have to deal with a variety of unique challenges, according to Ami Neiberger-Miller, a public affairs officer with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).

“The experience of military loss is so unique,” she said.

According to TAPS research, more than 80 percent of military deaths are traumatic and unexpected, catching family members by surprise. Military families are often thrust into the spotlight after the death, forced to take up the role of spokespeople to the media and strangers who want to honor the family and the fallen soldier. And some military family members suffer from insomnia, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“There’s no rulebook to guide families and help them,” Neiberger-Miller said. “It’s a long journey.”

For the Kihms, just over a year after Johnny’s passing, the sadness that comes from being one of those families, shrunken by war, never ends.

“I always feel like I’m stuck in that two week period, from when we found out until when we buried him,” Kihm said. “It doesn’t feel like we just had a year. It doesn’t feel like it at all.”

Marybeth, now 25, put it more succinctly.

“It sucks,” she said.

“If you’re going to be in it, you’re going to be in it.”

At Cardinal Dougherty High School, Johnny ran cross-country and wrestled. But he was especially drawn to the Marines “Delayed Entry Program,” which gives individuals under the age of 18 a chance to work with soldiers to prepare for enlistment at a later date.

Once a week, he trained with the Marines, and throughout high school he dreamed of enlisting after graduation.

In March of his senior year, though, he changed his mind. After high school, he spent a semester at the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State University.

But his interest in the military wouldn’t stay suppressed for long. After his first semester of college, Johnny returned home for Christmas break and told his parents he had made up his mind: he wanted to enlist.

Kihm wasn’t exactly thrilled, but she had told her son when he was in high school that she would support him if he decided to join.

“I knew that’s what he wanted,” she said.

Johnny and his parents considered both the Marines and the Army, and eventually decided that the Army would be a better fit. He enlisted, and on March 1, 2010, deployed to basic training at Fort Benning, in Georgia.

“I really thought he was going to be alright.”

Johnny Kihm in his Army gear. Photo provided by the Kihm family.

In June 2010, after completing basic training, Johnny moved to Fort Drum, N.Y., with the 10th Mountain Division infantry unit. He was supposed to stay there until May 2011, when the unit would be deployed to Afghanistan. But the deployment date was moved up two months. They shipped out on March 17, 2011.

Kihm had two phone conversations and four Facebook chat sessions with Johnny while he was overseas. She kept a record of all the interactions in a datebook.

“I would sit by the computer and just look for that little dot to appear,” she said, waiting for him to sign on to Facebook.

Her last phone call with him was on April 15, 2011. The conversation was brief, but he said they would talk more later.

He died four days after the call.

Before Johnny’s death, the possibility of losing her son never felt real, Kihm said. But now, the reality is inescapable.

“Some days it’s more like day one than day two,” she said.

“All this wouldn’t have happened if that wouldn’t have happened.”

While the Kihms grapple with Johnny’s death on a daily basis, they have also found various ways to dedicate themselves to new causes in his memory.

John, Johnny’s father, has taken up volunteering at the Philadelphia Veterans Comfort House, a shelter for homeless veterans.

Cecelia sends boxes of supplies – cigarettes, magazines, Red Bulls – to Johnny’s unit (a pack of cigarettes is accompanied by a note, telling the soldier on the receiving end that they have to promise to quit smoking).

One of her more recent efforts was to style pillowcases for the unit members.

And after finding out that the soldiers don’t have anything to put into the pillowcases, she decided that her next goal is to figure out a way to send the troops pillows.

Together, the Kihms established a foundation – the Pfc. Johnny Kihm Memorial Fund – that, among other activities, is raising money through events and t-shirt sales to refurbish a United Service Organizations lounge for military members at the Syracuse airport, near Fort Drum (the Kihms declined to say how much money they’ve raised so far).

And they’ve received countless gifts, tokens of support and donations in Johnny’s name – occasionally from complete strangers – which they in turn donate to the foundation, or use to buy supplies for the care packages.

Ingrid Seunarine, a bereavement counselor in New York City who directs grief counseling programs for Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, said that it’s common for people to donate time and energy to various causes after the death of a loved one. Doing so, she said, can help individuals cope with the loss, while also honoring the memory of the deceased.

“You have to keep that connection in your heart,” she said.

“It never stops.”

In the year since Johnny’s death, the Kihms have been visited by scores of wounded warriors and other supporters, wishing to pay their respects to the fallen soldier’s family.

Kihm said she has a deep sense of gratitude for the gestures and the soldiers who go out of their way to support them, especially those in the 10th Mountain Division.

“I feel like they’re mine,” she said.

But she also said that at times, unexpected visits, combined with the milestones that pass without her son – Memorial Day, 9/11, his unit’s first extended period of leave – can make it feel “like the viewing day never stops.”

After a few hours of talking about Johnny, with the smell of a home-cooked meal wafting through her living room, the pain in Kihm’s heart surfaced. With her eyes welling up, she recalled a moment that happened at Johnny’s funeral.

During the ceremony, she said, she reached out and touched her son’s closed casket.
Then she put her hand on her husband. Marybeth had her arm around him as well.

Kihm then whispered to Meghan, telling her to reach over and touch Marybeth.

And they formed a chain, linking Meghan, to Marybeth, to John, to Cecelia, to Johnny.

“We were all holding each other,” she said, her voice quivering.

Later that day, the Kihms would bury Johnny at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Northeast Philadelphia.

But at that moment, they sat together as a family for the last time.

“It was beautiful,” said Kihm, fighting off tears.

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PHILADELPHIA- At the corner of North Broad and Vine Street the men of Philly ReNew sat around a long conference table and waited with journals in hand on the first Friday of December.

A broad-shouldered man with a smooth, authoritative voice, stood up from the group and read.

“Through this congregation, through us being together, I’ve got a new belief in how to deal with things in life,” said Benjamin Wright, 47 of Philadelphia, a participant of Philly ReNew. “I got a different kind of pride and I’ve got a different kind of idea and this old battleship will float again.”

Philly ReNew, an ongoing 12-week program conducted by the Pennsylvania Prison Society, was created to help fathers with criminal backgrounds find employment and improve their overall quality of life during the transition from prison to community. Groups of members are called cohorts. Each cohort participates in ReNew’s two phases: life skills education courses at the Pennsylvania Prison Society and case management — utilizing the skills learned during the first six weeks to help members find employment — at the National Comprehensive Center for Fathers in Philadelphia, PA.

Although the focus is on job placement, ReNew takes the process one step further.

“We realized journaling is very therapeutic,” said Pamela Superville, ReNew Program Manager. “We have something in the room called black box journaling.”

Members of Philly ReNew sit around a conference table and read from their journals on Dec. 3, 2010 in Philadelphia, PA. ReNew is a reentry program for fathers with criminal background. Photo by Elyse Ann Mickalonis/Pavement Pieces

The concept of ReNew’s black box journaling is simple: the men of ReNew share entries out of their journals.

Members are encouraged to write in their journals every day to promote positive thinking and actions. During readings, participants are given a chance to discuss entries and reflect on their own experiences to relate with one another — helping each other identify and work through the difficult life situations that can occur post-prison, at home and pre job placement.

“Time to choose the road less traveled and it makes sense to me now, that on a road less traveled, there will be less traffic, so if I stay in my lane there’s nothing but checkered flags and victory laps,” read one member.

Members stayed positive and supportive of each other. They clapped, hollered and praised peers for their passionate prose during journal readings.

In order to participate men must be 18 years of age or older, high school graduates, unemployed or living below poverty level and a legal parent of a minor child, because ReNew is a father initiative program — helping the men become better, more responsible parents.

Cameron Holmes, ReNew Life Skills Educator and Job Coach, draws on his own criminal history to motivate group members to change the way they think, act and cope with the difficult issues that arise after prison.

“The 22 years I spent away, although I didn’t think it was just or fair … I understood it,” Holmes said. “But I really think it makes it not a waste if I’m able to help someone else avoid going through that same situation.”
Paul Mowatt, originally from Camden, NJ, came to ReNew to hone his interviewing skills for job placement, but discovered how love can be more powerful than money.

“My son’s birthday is Sunday and I can’t go out and buy him anything,” Mowatt whispered from his journal, “but I can show him my love. Mr. Holmes told me that … I don’t have to focus on what I can’t do and focus on what I can do.”

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