I was downtown for 5 minutes around 19th and Market the other day, waiting at a truck for some halal food, and saw both the notorious screaming woman (who relea

I was downtown for 5 minutes around 19th and Market the other day, waiting at a truck for some halal food, and saw both the notorious screaming woman (who releases a bloodcurdling scream every 30 seconds or so that can be heard for blocks around) and a woman who had painted herself in her own feces. At every major intersection near me there are 1 to 5 heroin addicts asking for money from cars passing by on a daily basis. Go drive down Delaware Ave. Drive up Aramingo. Drive up Market. Drive up University Ave. Drive up Girard. You'll see them on every major street, right now. I'm a few blocks away form the Girard L stop and another methadone clinic. In either direction on Girard, I'll see not only half a dozen wandering addicts at any given time, but a group of 20-30 at Girard and Front is there basically all day every day, another dozen hang out by the clinic at 8th, there's usually more intermittently around the health clinic on Girard. To get to these gathering points, they naturally walk through other residential areas. I find the occasional addict passed out on bench-like structures throughout my neighborhood on a regular basis. I walked with some friends to dinner last night (about a 10 minute walk on Girard and in Nolibs) and we saw multiple heroin addicts and someone especially eccentric camping outside the restaurant we went to. I consider multiple addicts and insane people on any short walk through any major thoroughfare to be a pervasive problem.