🤯 $1 Billion a Year: Why "Cleaning Up" Kensington Won't Stop the Drug Trade

 

The tragic crisis in Kensington, Philadelphia, is often framed solely as a problem of homelessness and addiction on its streets. However, a recent analysis from the YouTube channel Chris Battin (Video: Is the Homeless Population of People in Kensington Responsible for ALL the Money Coming for Drugs?) breaks down the staggering economics of the local drug trade, revealing a critical fact: the vast majority of the money is imported.

The video, which uses data based on conversations with people on the street and rough estimates, offers a powerful financial perspective that shifts the focus from the victims of addiction to the external demand driving the market.

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The Staggering Scale: $1 Billion in Income

The core premise of the analysis is a commonly cited estimate that the total income generated by drug dealers in Kensington alone reaches an astonishing $1 billion annually.

To understand where this massive amount of money originates, the video separates the income into two primary streams:

1. Local Income: Money spent by the estimated 2,000 individuals living locally or experiencing homelessness in Kensington.

2. External Income: Money spent by people who drive or take transit into Kensington specifically to purchase drugs.

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90% of the Money Comes From Outsiders

The video’s key finding is a complete reversal of the popular narrative. By crunching the numbers, the analysis shows that the local homeless population is responsible for only a small fraction of the total revenue.

📈 Financial Breakdown (Annual Estimates):

Category	Annual Value	% of Total $1 Billion
Local User Spending	$109,500,000	10.95%
External Customer Spending	$890,500,000	89.05%

This means that almost 90 cents of every dollar earned by Kensington drug dealers is supplied by customers traveling into the neighborhood.

The scale of this external demand is massive. Assuming an average external purchase of $500, the video estimates that the dealers facilitate over 4,879 drug transactions per day from external buyers.

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The Flawed Solution: Targeting the Homeless

The video uses this financial evidence to challenge the idea that removing or "cleaning up" the local homeless population will resolve the drug crisis.

As the analysis shows, the drug trade is not sustained by the 10% of revenue from local users; it is a $890 million enterprise fueled by demand from people who drive or commute into Kensington. The speaker argues that focusing solely on the homeless population is "far from" addressing the whole thing, as the financial engine of the crisis is based entirely on external demand.

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The Hidden Cost: Prostitution and Local Funding

The video also touches on how the local users fund their 10% share of the market, which tragically exposes another layer of the crisis: prostitution.

The analysis estimates that approximately 80% of the $109.5 million spent by the local population is financed through prostitution. The speaker suggests that a key lever for change is to target the men with the money who are hiring the women, as their behavior is easier to curb than the physical demands of addiction faced by the women.

In short, the video concludes that the solution lies not just in addressing the visible crisis on the streets, but in cutting off the external financial demand that makes the drug enterprise profitable in the first place.

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Watch the full analysis here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSCfkOHCqzI