Buffalo Grove residents oppose rehab center -- in Arlington Hts.
Six years ago, some residents in Buffalo Grove's Mill Creek subdivision opposed an affordable housing complex in their neighborhood. They brought their concerns to the Buffalo Grove village board, even though the development, the Timber Court condominiums, was in Arlington Heights.
On Monday night, two Mill Creek residents returned to Buffalo Grove's Village Hall to protest another proposed development in their area - an apartment building for people with mental illness.
As with Timber Court, the Buffalo Grove village board cannot stop the plans, because the property is in Arlington Heights. But it's near the Buffalo Grove border and Mill Creek.
The proposal is to build a three-story, 30-unit building at 120 and 122 East Boeger Road on the vacant land just east of Arlington Heights Road and south of Dundee Road. It would be a joint project between Thresholds, a nonprofit provider of psychiatric rehabilitation services, and Daveri Development Group.
The Arlington Heights Plan Commission is expected to meet Wednesday to discuss the proposal. However, two Mill Creek residents, Craig Horwitz and Rob Sherman, urged Buffalo Grove trustees to oppose the project, just as they did when they drafted a resolution in opposition to Timber Court.
A parent group called The North/Northwest Suburban Task Force on Supportive Housing for Individuals with Mental Illness initiated attempts to get this type of housing in the community. The vice chair of the task force, Mary Lou Lowry, told Buffalo Grove trustees Monday that Thresholds services are world-renowned, and the development would house people with persistent mental illness, including schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder.
Buffalo Grove trustees did not give a clear sense of where they stood on the proposal. Since the matter was brought up as a non-agenda item, no action was taken. Trustee Lisa Stone, however, did raise concerns about having a facility that close to young children at KinderCare, as well as high schoolers. She felt that a third-party psychiatrist should evaluate the site.
Horwitz said he favors the "mission of this project" and praised Thresholds' "phenomenal work."
"I just don't think this is the right place," he said.
Sherman argued that the proposal is contrary to the task force's vision, to be near a downtown area and close to public transportation. While the site is close to strip shopping centers and medical offices, it's approximately four miles from downtown Arlington Heights.
"Clearly, this site not only doesn't meet their needs, but in fact, will make their psychoses dramatically worse by sending the clients a strong negative message about what the community thinks of them by isolating them in the center of a commercial /industrial park, with no access to any of the things that they will need. They will be stranded. They will be resentful about being stranded without access to any of their needs," Sherman wrote in an e-mail after the meeting.
Lowry said a Pace van would be obtained to take care of the residents' transportation needs. She added that the Northwest suburbs suffer from "an appalling lack of appropriate housing for people with mental illness," and that there was no opposition to the plan during a neighborhood meeting in February.
Wheeling Township Elementary District 21 board member Arlen Gould also defended the proposal, saying as the wealthiest country in the world, "it is our obligation to help those most in need of help."
Gould said the residents will be contributing members of society, "but most important, they are already in our society." The alternative would be to warehousing the mentally ill, much as this country did in the 1920s.
"The time has come to put aside 1920 and build the kind of facilities we can be proud of to take care of young adults and growing adults who have nowhere else to go," he said.
Gould said the site is the best site that could be found at an affordable price.