La Grange-based BEDS Plus is expanding its fight against homelessness, recently celebrating the first anniversary of its new facility in nearby Summit.
The Linda Sokol Francis Summit Service Center (SSC) is a $3.6 million public-private project designed to provide solutions for people who find themselves homeless in South Suburban Cook County.
“This place represents what we call our first point of contact,” Tina Rounds, executive director of BEDS Plus, said recently sitting in her office in Summit. “We have open, walk-in hours. The Summit Service Center is a building that houses our medical respite, and that’s what we’re celebrating a year of. We have a year of offering medical respite to the community, which is an 18-bed facility where people are discharged from hospitals. They’re homeless, but they need home recovery.”
Rounds said the health challenges faced by homeless clients ranged from cancer treatments to orthopedic issues and chronic conditions made worse by being homeless.
“We coordinate their medical care as well as, in a parallel way, get them connected with the housing resources they would be eligible for,” she said.
Rounds said both BEDS Plus facilities serve primarily the Southwest Suburban Cook County area.
“Our northernmost part is Cicero, or Berwyn and Cicero,” she said, depending on the project, BEDS Plus could coordinate its services as far south as the Indiana border.
In addition to the walk-in service providing help for anyone in need, SSC also operates a phone service.
“We operate a phone line 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Rounds said. “It’s always staffed by a human being. They’re calling, they’re in crisis and they need support.”
Rounds indicated that COVID-19 had been a factor in the number of homeless nationwide.
“We saw nationally, an increase in homelessness, about 23 % from the prior year,” she said, before adding another troubling statistic. “A majority of those were people who are first-time homeless. Indications are that this is the trailing effect of the pandemic and the contracting of services and financial assistance, and programming that were federally sponsored during COVID to help people through that. Some people didn’t make it and fell into homelessness.”
BEDS Plus statistics show that 60 % of their shelter clients have a disabling health condition.
“All the people that are here come from hospitals,” Rounds said. “We partner with Loyola, Trinity Health, Chicago Advent, and also Advocate Aurora. Palos is also Northwestern now. Those are our primary client referents.”
With no place to live and tend to their medical issues, the homeless often wind up back in the emergency room, often with worse conditions. That’s where SSC hopes to help, providing up to 24 months of fixed-site, interim housing for the medically vulnerable homeless while they qualify for permanent housing.
The 18-bed facility has 24-hour staffing, seven days a week, and is equipped with lockers, shower facilities, a dining room, and an activity room. Perhaps the most critical service is access to medical clinics and behavioral health services through Pillars Community Health and Amita Health Southwest.
Terri Rivera, BEDS Plus chief advancement officer, said clients in the Summit facility had successfully transitioned to permanent housing.
“We just had two move-ins last week,” she said referring to clients at SSC who had transitioned to permanent housing at the BEDS Plus facility in La Grange. “We had two guests that were here who got medically cleared and we had space at our permanent supportive housing in La Grange and have their own little bedroom. It’s our one-year anniversary and we’re super proud of that. We have served 52 clients since we opened and have transitioned to housing with BEDS or independently.”
Rounds said funding for SSC is about equally divided between private and public sources and in its first year proven to be financially solvent.
“We’re paying our bills,” she said.
The Linda Sokol Francis Summit Service Center is at 7666 W. 63rd Street, Summit. Further information on BEDS Plus can be found at its website beds-plus.org.
Hank Beckman is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.