Political dignitaries and people representing the mental health service community were on hand Thursday to officially launch the The Living Room, a drop-in crisis center at 311 Elmwood Ave.
The center, scheduled to open in early October, is similar to one in Skokie operated by the non-profit Turning Point Behavior Health Care Center.
Turning Point CEO Ann Raney said bringing The Living Room to Evanston “felt like an obvious connection.”
She said that Turning Point had approached the mayor and other city leaders regarding bringing the crisis center to Evanston several years ago and that they were very receptive.
She said the Elmwood Avenue facility, which will be locked and secured, would offer its services from noon to 8 p.m. daily. She said that she expected about 15 to 20 guests a week seeking help to cope with just about any acute crisis.
All services are free of charge and open to adults only.
Also opening along with the Evanston Living Room is a mobile unit, a large orange RV-like vehicle that Raney says will “introduce us to our neighbors.”
Raney hopes the mobile unit will become a fixture at public events and block parties and help educate Evanstonians about available mental health-related services.
Raney said the new Living Room will also offer workforce-related services, as well as services in other areas, sometimes in conjunction with other local organizations.
Jessica Hernandez, director of Turning Point’s Living Room sites, said that the program’s expansion will let the group “collaborate with other agencies” in bringing needed services to different communities.
She said the Evanston site will offer guests access to counselors “who have lived experience with mental health services, or they’re in their own recovery process…” She added that “seeing the work that we do with our guests…is amazing.”
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, State Sen. Laura Fine and Mayor Daniel Biss spoke at the event.
Schakowsky said that were it not for facilities like The Living Room, “people would end up in the emergency room. That is not the best way to serve people who are in crisis…”
She also said the Living Room model has a success rate of 98%.
“This is a model that should be done all over the country,” Schakowsky said. “It works and the outcomes that we are looking for are right here.”
Fine, whose district includes Evanston, chairs the Behavioral and Mental Health Committee in the Illinois senate. “To actually live and represent a district that is leading the way in this case is so heartwarming,” she said.
Biss called the new program an “extraordinary, meaningful, transformational service we did not have” in Evanston.
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