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A matter of proportion

I have friends and family members who suffer from mental illness and opioid addiction. I have lost some to suicide and overdose. I know it is vital that people have access to care. No individual seeking treatment should feel unwelcome or forsaken.

However, I remain concerned that the Haymarket facility proposed for Itasca is disproportionately large for this small community. The loss of tax revenue coupled with the increase in emergency response costs will not be sustainable for a village that has no significant independent taxing authority with which to make up the difference.

A stated mission of Haymarket DuPage is to serve DuPage and nearby counties. This is a mission to be a regional treatment facility for a region of over 8 million people.

The approximately 400-bed campus in Chicago - a municipality over 300 times larger than Itasca - comprises less than 0.015% of that city's population and already treats residents from outside Cook County. The 16-bed proposal for Wheaton - a city at least five times larger than Itasca - would have comprised only 0.03% of that community's population. Yet, the 272-bed facility in Itasca would be equivalent to over 3% of the village's current population. This equates to 200% and 100% increases, respectively, in the number of beds as a portion of population.

This is an unreasonable burden to place on a community with, in relative terms, a vanishingly small tax base to support it. The opposition to this facility isn't about stigmatizing those with mental illness or substance use disorders; they are indeed our family and friends. It is not an unwillingness to provide a contribution to the betterment of society; we only ask that it be proportionate to our size and resources. This is, quite simply, just math.

Jennifer Kepp-Muzzo

Itasca

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