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Nonprofit opens 16-unit Skokie home for those with mental health, housing challenges

Sixteen north suburban residents experiencing mental health challenges and housing instability will soon have a chance to live in a newly-constructed 16-unit building through local organization Impact Behavioral Health.

The organization, which serves people with severe mental illness who are at risk of homelessness, formally opened its new facility July 26 at 8047 Floral Avenue, Skokie.

Director of Operations Vince Heneghan said the building, the organization’s second in Skokie and ninth overall, has been in the works since 2017.

Executive Director Patti Capouch said the reception from neighbors has been good so far.

“We picked a community that we knew would be very welcoming,” she said. “We knew that our participants would be able to just blend in and be a part of the community.”

Impact Behavioral Health maintains most of its other buildings in Evanston as well as 26 apartment units scattered throughout the north and northwest suburbs, she said.

Aside from 16 one-bedroom apartments, the building also houses two offices for services, a shared gathering space, an exercise room, a storage room, laundry, a computer room and a bike room.

The building will provide permanent supportive housing to three current and 13 new Impact Behavioral Health clients, Heneghan said.

The building’s residents will live independently with access to a 24/7 mental health crisis hotline and a building management team that’s also trained for mental health interventions and therapy.

Impact Behavioral Health takes a “housing first” approach: they try to address basic needs like shelter before working on other issues, Heneghan said.

“(The idea) is to get a roof over their heads and then we can start connecting them to all the services they would need,” he said.

About 80% of the organization’s residents opt to work with a staff clinician and about 40% choose to work with an employment specialist, he said.

The average length of residency in an Impact Housing unit is nine years, Capouch said, although some residents leave much sooner or stay much longer. Director of Development Laurie Flanagan said the organization serves about 700 people overall, most of whom are participants in its employment program.

The facility cost about $8 million to build and was primarily funded through a mix of grants from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, Cook County and the State of Illinois, according to a press release from the organization.

Private donations also helped pay for the building, including $1 million worth of donated time and resources from the “digital infrastructure” and data center company Equinix, per the news release.

Capouch and Heneghan said Impact Behavioral Health board member Renee Lanam used to work for the California-based firm, which runs data processing centers in Cook County, and put the two organizations in touch.

Earlier this summer, the organization received a $250,000 grant from the Illinois Housing Development Authority, which they said they’d use to shorten their clients’ time to wait before seeing a clinician.

The apartments are ready and furnished, down to rugs, art on the walls and sheets on the beds.

Heneghan said the organization hopes to obtain an occupancy permit by the end of August and begin moving clients in shortly afterward.