If you’ve walked through LOVE Park during May and June the last two years, you have undoubtedly seen a long shipping container anchored in the northwest corner of JFK Plaza, a cherry-red beacon sitting in the shadow of Philadelphia’s historic City Hall.

Part public art installation and part information center, the corten steel box is the temporary office of The People’s Budget, one piece of an initiative led by artist Phoebe Bachman of Mural Arts of Philadelphia, and funded by the City of Philadelphia.

Founded in 2020, The People’s Budget empowers Philadelphians to participate in the city’s yearly budget process and join the conversation to decide where city funds are spent. Sometimes called participatory budgeting, community members have the right to speak up in real time about their neighborhood’s needs but the final decisions are left to elected officials and their staffs.

The People’s Budget Office is just one example of how Mural Arts purposefully seeks out the average Philadelphian and works to advocate for a more inclusive process of government.

“We wanted to meet people where they’re at in everyday life, like here in LOVE Park for example, and teach regular folks about the city budget,” says Bachman. “It’s important because people are impacted by the budget decisions whether they know it or not.”

This is the fourth year that the art program has been a conversation starter in Philadelphia. The budget has been a source of contention for many years in the City of Brotherly Love, but according to Bachman, there is a process that allows for community opinion and oversight.

“Social engagement can come in many ways, and we’ve seen an increase in support from the City Council from our efforts,” Bachman says. “This spring we held budget workshops in Kensington, Nicetown, and South Philly, and The People’s Budget took over the Roundtable in City Hall. That was the first time in Philadelphia’s history that its citizens occupied seats of power like that.”

Transparency and education are a focus at The People’s Budget Office in the park; the red corrugated wall panels were scattered with posters about participatory budgeting, illegal dumping, and alternatives to incarceration. Printed booklets and flyers showed the benefits of funding a drug harm reduction program and the meaning of progressive revenue.

Contact information for all of the City Councilmembers was in plain sight, and it was evident that the temporary office was succeeding in its mantra to educate, advocate, and imagine.

How the Budget Is Created

In January and February, the Budget Office predicted how much revenue Philadelphia made in taxes and then decided where to spend it; in March, Mayor Cherelle Parker, the first Black woman to serve the city in this elected position, proposed a $6.29 billion Operating and Capital budget to the City Council for review.

The mayor’s 2024-2025 fiscal year budget plan featured unchanged tax rates and increased investment in law enforcement and citywide cleaning efforts. It also included her five-year vision for the city, “One Philly Budget.”

Since April, the City Council has held hearings to learn more from departments and gather community feedback on the budget, and May opened up opportunities for public testimony, advocacy, and even protest over the proposed spending of city funds. City Council unanimously approved the budget on June 13, and Parker signed it into law on June 14. But before the June 30 deadline to finalize the budget, residents shared their opinions.

Participants read an assortment of cards made by Philadelphia citizens. The cards detail their hopes for the city budget. (Photo by Melissa Simpson / Next City)

Advocating for a More Just Philly

While many Philadelphians attend town halls to discuss the issues, there are other ways to object. On May 23 and 26, Wanya Allen, a 24-year-old community lead for Sunrise Movement Philly, was one of dozens of protesters blocking traffic at 21st and Spruce Streets in response to Mayor Parker’s proposed budget cut to the Parks & Recreation Department.

“The mayor promised to double the spending for parks and recs when she was running for office,” says Allen, a college student and resident of North Philly. “But last March, she proposed to cut the budget by $1.7 million, and remove some green spaces from the city for good.”

This seemed to contradict Mayor Parker’s campaign promise to make Philadelphia “the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation with economic opportunity for all.”

Students, parents, and park lovers from Sunrise Movement Philly, an environmental advocacy group, dressed up in sports and library book character costumes and blocked traffic in protest of the mayor’s proposed budget cuts, which included funding for city libraries and gymnasiums.

“We need these local landmarks for many reasons, and having our parks and community centers open indirectly lowers gun violence in the city because you’re giving kids a positive place to go every day,” says Allen. “If you take that away from the community, it will lead to more kids being out on the streets aimless.”

To Allen’s point, while shootings are starting to slow overall, the number of youths involved in gun violence in Philadelphia has soared in the past five years.

Sunrise Movement Philly sent demands to city hall to speak to the mayor, asking for the full funding and staffing of libraries and parks, and plans on one more protest before the City Council approved this year’s budget.

In the end, about $1.7 million was taken from the Parks and Recs budget, but it went to the city’s new Capital Projects Office, which will spend the money on parks.

This civil disobedience is just one way Philadelphians can voice their concerns about the city budget. For example, according to the journalism organization Resolve Philly, 74 community members — including five Spanish-speaking residents — asked for more information and ways to take action after receiving a bi-weekly text line update about public hearings on the budget.

The People’s Budget prefers to use art installations for communication and as a tool for change.

“When people are empowered to speak up it increases input and demystifies the process,” says Bachman, the art program director. “We use the time and space to think about what the city really means to us and how we can best use these funds to help the neighborhoods. No one is calling for defunding the police anymore, but we would like to see robust community programs.”

In early spring, The People’s Budget contacted City Councilmember Kendra Brooks to help with their agenda, gaining her support on community issues like worker protection and affordable housing.

“Our neighborhoods and our city belong to the people who live here. Our budget should be a reflection of the greatest needs and hopes we have in our communities, so we need to listen and incorporate their ideas as we make decisions about spending,” Brooks says. “The People’s Budget is a great way to engage people in our communities about what services will get funded, and get input about what we should prioritize.”

Last year, one of the budget requests that emerged from the People’s Budget was funding for mobile crisis units, which provide non-police support services during mental health crises.

“We held a press conference and community members spoke about the fear of calling the police, pointing towards the death of Walter Wallace, a West Philadelphian shot by police while experiencing a mental health crisis,” Brooks says. “We know we have a lot of mental health issues in our communities, and we need resources that will help us heal, not cause more trauma in our neighborhoods.”

The two allies won funding for mobile crisis units in last year’s budget.

This spring, as a result of some of these conversations with community members, they were asking for $100 million in rental assistance to supplement the Eviction Diversion Program over the next two years, $2.6 million for the Office of Worker Protections, and more funding for the “Built to Last” program that repairs people’s homes.

When the city budget was passed in early June, these programs received most of the funding that community members had requested.

“We believe in fighting for Philadelphia and the needs of our families, friends, and neighbors — however we can,” says People’s Budget Office volunteer Erme Maula.

In the case of this program, “however we can” looked like months of work and advocacy.