Study shows need for senior supportive housing in Lake Co.

While there is a growing need for a low-income senior citizen housing facility that provides a minimal level of assistance for its residents, building it may cost Lake County double the initial estimate, officials said.

The Lake County Board's health and community services committee this week got its first look at a study to determine if such a facility would be viable, and found the actual cost may be $20 million to $24 million. When the board first commissioned the study, the cost of building a 60-unit supportive living housing facility was estimated at $12 million.

The county has a license from the Department of Healthcare and Family Services for such a facility. If approved by the county board, it would be built on the campus of the county-owned Winchester House skilled nursing home in Libertyville.

However, any decisions on whether to proceed and how to pay for it are still many months away.

Supportive living is an alternative to a nursing home that provides apartment-style living for seniors who can function semi-independently. It would offer limited personal care, kitchen facilities, meals, medication management, 24-hour emergency response, housekeeping, laundry and social activities.

Lake County's target audience is low or moderate-income seniors 65 years and older.

County officials first need to decide whether it's a service the county should provide, figure out how to pay for it, and whether the county can afford to run such a facility or if it should enter into a public-private partnership on the venture.

"This would be a new business for the county," said Dusty Powell, assistant county administrator. "We have a variety of options for providing this service to the public. We just don't have any experience."

Consultants offered five options for how the county could run such a facility: county-owned and operated; county-owned with third-party management; third party-owned and operated; third party operated with a lease from the county; and joint ownership with a third party.

Officials decided to hire another consultant to further investigate the public-private partnership possibilities.

"That's our next step," Powell said. "The key to that is the supportive living facility has to pay for itself. There is no property tax subsidy approved by the voters for this."

Officials said the study shows a critical need exists for senior supportive living housing within a seven-mile radius of Libertyville, which would be the primary service area of a county facility.

"There's a whole slew of places where you can go if you can afford it," said Lake County Board member Steve Carlson, who chairs the health and community services committee. "But if you are on Medicaid and/or earn under $40,000 a year, there is only one place in Lake County where you can go and that's in Zion, and that's full."

The study shows more than 1,169 eligible seniors live within the identified primary service area. By 2018, that number is expected to grow to 1,482 seniors.

Yet, a supportive living facility in Libertyville could potentially draw residents from the entire county.

"They (consultants) are telling us we should build 100 beds and we would fill that up instantly," Carlson said. "There is a tremendous unmet need."