Denise Patterson (not her real name) lives on Hunting Park Avenue in Philadelphia.  It is a low end block mostly consisting of elderly homeowners, working class and struggling families.  Denise is a single mother with three kids.  She lives with her elderly father and uncle, disabled during the Vietnam war.  The family residence is a three story townhouse with a lower level lawn and upper landing under a porch.  The family has lived on this block for nearly fifteen years. They are a clean family that maintains their lawn area and surrounding property as well as they can.  Like most families on the block they chose not to store their trash inside the house.  This in order to eliminate the possibility of vermin contamination inside of their homes.  Most have big cans and put their trash out on the upper level of their property until the morning of trash day.  For the last month several families on the block have told me that they have been ticketed by the Streets Department for premises littering some numerous times.  This with no warnings.  These people have never received a ticket from the City's streets department in all the years that they have been doing this practice.  Suddenly, this begins to happens.

    Karen Westly (not her real name) is fifty nine years old, disabled and struggling with heart and kidney issues.  She lost her job of eight years when her boss became addicted to oxycotin.  His need for the drug ate up his employees, $10 thousand dollar life insurance policy, their medical and dental benefits, as well as their retirement plans.  Karen was not informed that her medical coverage had ended.  When she began to have heart and kidney problems she sought medical attention.  Several months down the line she was slapped with thousands of dollars in medical bills exhausting her savings.  Karen was forced to seek unemployment compensation. When the unemployment compensation ran out Karen took employment in her home as a home school teacher.  The job only paid $278 per month, barely enough to pay her utilities.  Prior to the collapse of her employment Karen was considered one of the top professionals in her field.   Karen lives with her daughter who is also unemployed and sick.  They struggle each week to put their trash out which is kept in the basement.  The routine is to pull the trash out through the basement window to the landing a flight above the pavement, to the porch and then to the curb the next day.  It is a job that takes a few hours for the girls to do.

    Karen told me that she was in the process of doing this when a very arrogant worker from the Streets Department stuck a ticket into the cast iron railing on the street below her property.  She said that the worker clearly saw her working on the trash.  Karen called to the worker asking her why she received the ticket.  She said that the worker was very arrogant yelling "its for dem two big ass trash bags sitting right there."  Karen explained the situation as the worker waved her hand in a caviler manner and walked away.  She witnessed the worker push a ticket into Denise's railing as well. She asked the worker why she was doing that, because it was on their porch and in a covered can but the worker continued to ignore her scribbling on her pad for the next intended victim. The worker did not put the tickets into the residents mailboxes.  Karen was devastated.  This was the second ticket in one month from the Streets Department.  Both of the tickets were for $25 amounting to $50 in a single month.

    This created a tremendous heart ship for Karen. It meant that she had to go without one of her prescriptions for an entire month. "It'll probably be my pain meds because I can't go without the high blood pressure meds."  She said sadly.  "This Clean Sweep thing is supposed to be about a quality of life issue, but look what it's done for the quality of my life."  Denise's family suffered as well.  The second ticket undoubtedly stifled Christmas plans for the family.  They also got a ticket earlier in December.

    It seems that the city is still trying to resolve its bad managerial financial issues on the backs of Philadelphians who are suffering the most and during the Holiday Season no doubt!

Disgusting...Heartless...Grinches.   No wonder this city is in the dumps.  It's called BAD KARMA.