📈 Homelessness on the rise

🍁 Welcome to fall!

Today's weather: Partly sunny skies with high temps near 74.

🎂 Happy birthday to our Axios Philadelphia member Julia Sadtler!

🪧 Situational awareness: Hundreds of Aramark food service workers are expected to strike outside Citizens Bank Park, the Wells Fargo Center, and Lincoln Financial Field this morning, the Inquirer reports.

Today's newsletter is 874 words, a 3.5-minute read.

Homelessness is on the rise again in Philadelphia, according to the city's annual point-in-time survey.

Why it matters: The uptick comes as the city's beleaguered Office of Homeless Services is in the midst of a leadership shakeup and trying to recover from years of overspending.

Driving the news: Nearly 5,200 people are estimated to be experiencing homelessness in Philly this year, per the survey conducted in January — Mayor Cherelle Parker's first month in office. That's up nearly 10% compared to last year.

• The city's homeless population increased for the third year in a row and topped 5,000 for the first time since 2020.

Yes, but: The population remains below pre-pandemic levels.

Zoom in: The majority of people experiencing homelessness were in emergency shelters, safe havens or transitional housing. But the share of those unsheltered surged 38%, compared to last year, to reach 976.

• Kensington, ground zero for the city's heroin crisis, accounted for 337 of the city's unhoused population, up 23% over last year.
• Overall, the city has seen an increase in the number of homeless people in South and Northeast Philly in recent years, per the report.

The big picture: Since the count was conducted, Parker has cracked down on homelessness, particularly in Kensington.

• During her first year in office, Parker has cleared encampments from the neighborhood's main business corridor, and she's seeking to build a $100 million drug treatment facility and shelter in Holmesburg. It's expected to house more than 600 people.
• She's also pledged to dismantle the open-air drug markets in Kensington.

The latest: Parker recently appointed Cheryl Hill to lead the city's Office of Homeless Services, which is working to recover after overspending its budget by about $15 million in recent years.

• Hill comes from the anti-homelessness nonprofit Project HOME and previously worked for Atlanta's Housing Authority.

What we're watching: Hill is leading the development of a new strategy in the Parker administration to address systemic homelessness, city spokesperson Sherylle Linton Jones tells Axios.

Zoom out: The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in June that allows metropolitan areas struggling with rising homelessness to ban unhoused individuals from sleeping outdoors.

• Advocates have raised concerns that it allows municipalities to criminalize homelessness, even when shelter space is unavailable.
• There's no such ban in Philadelphia, and the Office of Homeless Services has condemned the high court ruling.

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Parking fees are returning to some SEPTA parking lots and garages starting Monday.

Why it matters: The cost to commuters comes as the transit agency faces a massive budget gap and more businesses implement return-to-work policies in Philadelphia.

Driving the news: Eight surface lots and SEPTA's three garages are resuming parking fees Monday. Surface lots are $2 a day, while garages are $4.

• The transit agency will phase in parking fees at its remaining lots through Nov. 6.
• Commuters don't have to pay for parking at their station until the scheduled start date.

Flashback: The transit agency suspended parking fees in 2020 during the pandemic as a way to lure riders back to the system.

Between the lines: The fees are doubled from pre-pandemic prices.

• Parking remains at surface lots on weekends and major holidays.

What's new: SEPTA is installing modern parking pay stations at its lots and garages and phasing out the old-school slot boxes.

How it works

The safety and sustainability of chemical operations and products is a core priority for the chemical industry.

Responsible Care is our industry's commitment to continuously enhance the health and safety of our employees, the communities we operate in and the environment as a whole.

Learn more.

🚨 Illegal car meetups throughout the city over the weekend drew big crowds and hundreds of vehicles. Around a dozen meetups were reported, including one outside City Hall where cars were seen drifting and several police vehicles were damaged. (CBS)

🤖 Pennsylvania's infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant is expected to go back online in 2028 and sell the energy exclusively to tech powerhouse Microsoft to help power data centers, especially for AI. (Axios)

🦅 The Eagles are 2-1 after eking out a victory against the New Orleans Saints yesterday with a late game-winning drive. (NBC Sports)

😑 Philadelphia International Airport ranked 27th — dead last again — in traveler satisfaction in a new study of similarly sized large airports. (Forbes)

🏀 ICYMI: Joel Embiid still trusts "The Process" because he signed a nearly $193 million max contract extension with the Sixers. The deal keeps him here through the 2028-29 season. (ESPN)

Heads up: A temporary student loan grace period protecting borrowers with missed or late payments will end later this month.

The big picture: Nearly 10 million borrowers were past due on their payments as of January, per a Government Accountability Office report released last month. That's about $290 billion in outstanding loans.

Zoom in: Sept. 30 marks the end of a one-year on-ramp period, where borrowers who were late or missed payments on federal student loans were not penalized or reported to credit bureaus.

• Starting Oct. 1, borrowers who are late on payments or do not make them can be reported to credit bureaus, which can negatively impact their credit scores for as long as seven years.

Yes, but: Federal student loans have "relatively generous guidelines for late payments," NerdWallet lending expert Kate Wood said.

• If you are late with a federal student loan payment, that won't be reported to the credit bureaus for 90 days, which is longer than the usual 30-day billing cycle, according to Wood.

Go deeper

Nearly 150 facilities in the tri-state area practice Responsible Care, the chemical industry's leading safety and sustainability initiative.

The impact: Responsible Care companies have a worker safety rating 4x better than the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Learn more.

✈️ Mike is looking forward to seeing his Axios colleagues in person in Minneapolis this week.

😆 Isaac is going to make sure to mob with the homies at the Mall of America.

Today's newsletter was edited by Alexa Mencia.