Hundreds of local neighbors visit the Municipal Services Center in North Philadelphia weekly. Representatives from the Department of Revenue, the Office of Community Empowerment & Opportunity (CEO) and other offices, are on hand to explain and provide City services face-to-face.

Chole McNeil is the manager for Revenue’s North Philly satellite office. Sulaiman Wood is CEO’s Benefits Access Unit Manager. We asked them to explain how their teams help residents at the “22^nd Street” location.

Where is the North Philly municipal services center, and what are your office hours?

Chole McNeil: We’re located at 2761 N. 22^nd Street [22^nd & Somerset], right behind the Save a Lot supermarket, and near Murrell Dobbins High School. We’re open Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 5pm. We help residents year-round except, like other City offices, we’re closed on Philadelphia City Holidays.

What Department of Revenue services do you offer in North Philly?

Chole McNeil: We basically offer all the same taxpayer and water customer services that are available at the Municipal Services Building across City Hall. We work with all Revenue accounts, including Real Estate Tax, business taxes, water billing, and refuse fees. You can make payments for all City taxes and water bills here.

There is one small, but important difference. Like our other satellite office in the Northeast [7522 Castor Ave], we don’t accept cash payments. Customers can pay with checks, money orders, and debit and credit cards for taxes and for water bills. If you prefer to pay in cash, you can do that at the Municipal Services Building at 1401 John F. Kennedy Blvd.

Can you also apply for Revenue’s assistance programs?

Chole McNeil: Yes. We can help you apply for the Customer Assistance Program (CAP) that helps low-income, special hardship and senior citizen customers lower their bills. We can also help you sign up for an Owner-Occupied Payment Agreement (OOPA) if you owe back property taxes, the Senior Citizen’s Real Estate Tax freeze, and other programs.

You may not know what kind of programs exist, and we’re here to help with that too. We can tell you what programs are out there, what kind of documents you need to apply, we provide and accept application forms.

What do customers like the most about your office?

Chole McNeil: To start, our dedicated and professional staff. People also like the convenience of our location. For a lot of residents, we’re much closer than the Municipal Services Building. This may be a smaller office, but we offer most of the same services as Center City location, including access to telephone interpreters for customers who speak languages other than English. And we have much better parking options than Center City!

Our customer also like the 22^nd Street location because we share the space with the Mayor’s office of Community Empowerment. That means we’re a “one-stop shop” for numerous City, state and federal programs. Sulaiman’s team can screen eligibility for food stamps, utility bill help, housing, furniture and food referrals, medical care, and much more.

We also have a representative from the Register of Wills who comes every other Wednesday to assist taxpayers. You can call (215) 686-6255 to get their exact schedule.

Sulaiman, what programs and services do residents most often request at the North Philly office?

Sulaiman Wood: Our most asked-for program in the North Philly office is the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s tax and rent rebate. We also help a lot of people with their utility bills. Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) applications are very popular. We can connect you with the Utility Emergency Services Fund (UESF) Utility Grants Program, which works in coordination with all the City utility companies.  This is a special matching-funds program that help residents who are struggling financially to zero-out their utility bills. The program will match up to $1,500 for gas and electric bills, and up to $3,000 for water bills.

Through the BenePhilly initiative we offer enrollment support for a lot of other programs too, so come see us. Our on-site staff person is bilingual Spanish and English. If you speak another language, we can get an interpreter on the phone.

What documents should residents bring along for BenePhilly programs?

Sulaiman Wood: You definitely want to bring a form of ID from the City, or the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It’s also smart to bring up-to-date proof of income for anyone in your household who is over 18, and verifying documentation of household size.

Other useful documents are current utility bills. Specific programs require specific documentation. We can help you find some of your documents online, like Social Security, pay stubs, and will often accept screenshots for some documents.

When can residents sign up for programs at the North Philly office?

Sulaiman Wood: Monday to Thursday, from 10am to 3pm. A lot of people will start an application at the office, and return to complete it later. It’s common for people to return with missing information and documents.

You can find our staff at the North Philly office, but also eight other BenePhilly locations across the City. We also have a mobile office that provides the same services.

If a resident is disabled, or has difficulty getting to one of our locations, we also have a customer assistance, toll-free hotline. You can call (844) 848-4376 from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.