PHILADELPHIA — Joshua Sanchez was leaving his bank one day in North Philly when a group of men with guns swarmed him. They robbed him, he said, then shot him once in the back before fleeing.
"It's still there," Sanchez, 38, said of the bullet, which is lodged too deep and close to his spine for doctors to remove.
Three years later, he's tried to move his life forward, but gun violence remains a looming threat. Sanchez hears shots at home and at job sites, where he works in property maintenance. The danger often feels overwhelming, the lifelong Philadelphian said. He worries that if he stays much longer, he or his son may not survive.
"I just put my house up for sale," he said. "I'm getting out of Philadelphia."
Sanchez is one of thousands in the city whose lives have been adversely affected by gun violence, and who feel negatively about Philadelphia's prospects because of it.
Nearly 50% of Philadelphians in recent poll said that gun violence has had a major negative impact on their quality of life, per the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and research firm SSRS, and 64% of respondents said they have heard gunshots in their neighborhood in the last year.
The responses underscored the reality of living in a shooting crisis that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in just three years, and touched most Philadelphia neighborhoods.
In interviews with nearly a dozen residents, people conveyed an ever-present fear of life in the city. Many said they've changed their habits in recent years as shootings have spiked, and now limit their time spent outdoors, especially at night. Mothers said they worry about their children anytime they leave home. Others, such as Sanchez, said they'd move out of Philadelphia if they had the resources.
"People are tired of looking over their shoulder," said Jacob Green, 69, a poll respondent who's saving up money to move from Mount Airy to North Carolina.
"It's nonstop," George Wright, 52, said of the violence. "You can't live in your own city."
The poll also quantified a long-known fact of the crisis: Communities of color largely bear the brunt of it.
Black respondents were more than twice as likely to say that gun violence has seriously affected their quality of life, compared with white respondents. And across income levels, Black and Latino residents were more likely than white residents to report that they had heard gunshots in the last year.
People were also interested in solutions that go beyond law enforcement. Of the nine measures to reduce crime that were presented to respondents, increasing funding for police was the least popular. The most important solution, respondents said, is to expand access to mental health and drug treatment services, followed by improving community-police relations.
But in the meantime, community members are not idly sitting by — many are taking matters into their own hands, such as Tone Barr in West Philadelphia, using food giveaways to bridge the poverty gap, and Zarinah Lomax in Germantown, helping co-victims of gun violence heal through art.
George Wright, a Democrat from South Philadelphia, said that he's lived in Philadelphia most of his life, but that he would move away if he could. Maybe to South Jersey or the suburbs, he said — anywhere more peaceful.
"This whole city is just sad," he said.
He recalled being outside with his son one afternoon when a shootout erupted on his block. He threw his son under a car, he said, and they crowded together on the ground in fear. The feeling that a shooting could occur at any moment haunts them, he said.
Camisha Wood's older brother, Darrell Windley, was killed during a robbery in Southwest Philadelphia in 2007. Their family still feels the weight of his death, she said, and she worries about her children, ages 11 and 17, anytime they leave home.
"It's heartbreaking to be a mom and tell your kid they can't go outside and play," she said.
She believes that beyond city programs, parents also need to take more responsibility for their kids.
"It starts in the home," said Wood, a kindergarten teacher from West Philly. "And it takes everybody."
Meanwhile, Margie Harkins, 63, a former X-ray technician who frequently worked with gun violence victims, said she wants to see stricter gun laws but knows that action must come from state leaders, not the city. But first, she said, the city must address the mindset of the people using guns.
"Why is everything settled by pulling a gun?" asked Harkins, a poll respondent from Southwest Philly.
And in Mount Airy, Patricia Garvin, 53, no longer rests on her porch the way she used to, afraid that bullets may fly. She's given up hope that elected officials can or will do anything to stop the violence, and said this year's mayoral race may be the first big election she skips.
"Prove something to me to make me wanna get out of my bed, literally before I get shot to go vote," she said, speaking to the candidates. "We put people in the office to help us, and they sell us dreams."
Although residents said they want to see city leaders and the police do more, many community members aren't waiting for government action. They are working to fill structural gaps on their own.
Such as funeral director Tone Barr, who said it's imperative that the city provide more resources to the victims and families affected by shootings.
Barr, community liaison director for the West Philadelphia Masjid, recently helped launch a weekly fresh food giveaway at the masjid, where he and volunteers pack up nearly 5,000 pounds of fresh food and distribute it to people in need every Thursday. Poverty and gun violence are directly connected, Barr said, and bringing people together in this space builds unity, which is often missing in the city.
"These are people in the community holding each other up," said Pastor Shuling Thorpe, 73, of Catalyst Church in West Philly, who visited the market.
Zarinah Lomax, founder of the Apologues, an organization that paints portraits of gun violence victims to help their families heal, says she believes that trauma is at the root of the violence crisis, and that city leaders must invest in more programs that address that pain.
Lomax's father was sentenced to life in prison for committing a fatal stabbing when she was in high school, she said, and there were no resources for her family, which endured its own kind of loss. Families of perpetrators and victims of violence still today have few options for support, she said.
"In every homicide, two families are destroyed," she said. "And the trauma is the reason they are even shooting in the first place."
Lomax also said state legislators should pass stricter gun laws, but given the number of weapons already on the street, she worries that shootings will continue without more work to address the social problems at the root of the crisis.
And as helpful as addressing that might be, according to Barr, there's no time to wait.
"We gotta take matters into our own hands," he said. "Who else is going to do it?"
