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         March 16, 2010        

Arlington Heights intends to put
apartments for severely mentally ill
across from Buffalo Grove High School

The Village of Arlington Heights is attempting to fast-track, before community opposition can be generated, the building of a 30-unit apartment building for persons with severe mental illness, to be located essentially across the street from Buffalo Grove High School and directly next door to a large KinderCare Learning Center day care facility for children aged 6 weeks to 12 years old.  The apartment building would also be next door (back-to-back) to a McDonald's restaurant, an Oberweis Ice Cream store and a Popeye's Fried Chicken restaurant, which students from Buffalo Grove High School regularly patronize during lunch and after school.

The facility would be run by Thresholds, a major service provider to the severely mentally ill in the Chicago area.  Thresholds facilities are open-door, which means that the severely mentally disturbed residents would have the freedom to come and go from the building, at will and all day long, to hang out around and be a constant threat to the safety of the children of Buffalo Grove.

The proposed location, on the north side of Boeger Road, is in a remote corner of Arlington Heights, which is exactly why the Village of Arlington Heights wants this highly undesirable use located there, rather than in the center of their village.  Boeger Road is located a half block south of Dundee Road, between Old Arlington Heights Road on the east and Arlington Heights Road to the west.  Each of those three streets serve as the border between Arlington Heights and Buffalo Grove.  That means that residential areas of Buffalo Grove are located a quarter block to the north, one block to the east and one block to the west of the proposed open-door mental institution.  The nearest neighborhood of single family homes in Arlington Heights is safely located nearly a mile away and across major highways.

Directly across Boeger to the south of the proposed apartment building is a radio station antenna tower that soars hundreds of feet into the air.  I'm sure that the radiation from being literally in the shadow of this tower would be a great benefit to the residents.  The shadow of the tower actually does fall across the proposed apartment property for during the middle of the day, ever day.

To make matters worse, there is no public transportation within miles of the proposed facility.  The closest bus stop is nearly two miles to the east, in Buffalo Grove, for Pace Route 234, which travels from Wheeling to Des Plaines.  The route doesn't go anywhere near Arlington Heights.  The closest commuter train station is the Metra station in Wheeling, nearly three miles away.  That train, too, doesn't go anywhere near Arlington Heights.  How convenient for the people of Arlington Heights, to keep the mentally ill away from them, while pretending to be so concerned about the welfare of the mentally ill.  How inconvenient for both the new residents and the people of Buffalo Grove, which surely is just what Arlington Heights has in mind.

The types of people who would have apartments at this Thresholds facility certainly would not have cars.  What are they supposed to do for transportation?  They'd be stranded, there, able only to walk to where they want to go, with most destinations within walking distance being located in Buffalo Grove, not Arlington Heights.

This location is just about the most unsuitable place in all of Arlington Heights to put a residential facility for severely mentally ill persons.  A facility such as this should be near community services that the residents would need and away from defenseless, unsuspecting, naive suburban children who don't have street smarts, rather than far away from those community services and right in the middle of where these trusting suburban children spend their days.

I have nothing against the mentally ill.  They have a right to live, too, but this location is entirely inappropriate for their needs, as well as the needs of the rest of the community.  What does Thresholds and the Village of Arlington Heights plan to do to protect the residents of Buffalo Grove, and in particular our children, from these admittedly severely mentally unstable persons?

An apartment building for people with persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder, as this place is intended for, should be located in a place that has minimal exposure to unprotected neighborhood children, not right next door to facilities that serve thousands of unprotected neighborhood children.

One of the key values of Thresholds is helping their clients find employment that they can handle, despite their mental illness, which is a really good thing.  How are their clients supposed to get to work, if their apartment building is located miles from public transportation and not within walking distance of any significant employment center?  An apartment building for severely mentally ill people who don't drive, but who will be seeking employment, should be located as near as possible to public transportation, not miles away from the closest form of public transit so as to make employment virtually impossible.  There are an unlimited number of places in the Chicago area, and many places in Arlington Heights, that are close to transit.  Boeger Road isn't one of them.

Just so that you don't think that I am engaging in false sensationalism when I refer to Thresholds' clients as "severely mentally ill," it is Thresholds, themselves, who describe their clients that way in their Mission Statement (see the lower right-hand corner of the linked page):  "Thresholds assists and inspires people with severe mental illnesses..."  In their Annual Report, Thresholds describes their programs this way:  "Thresholds is Illinois' oldest and largest organization delivering services to people with severe mental illness."  (See the first sentence of the first paragraph on page 14 of their Annual Report.)  "Our organization serves people with severe and persistent mental illness..."  (See the first sentence of the second paragraph on page 14 of their Annual Report.)

I am merely using the characterization that Thresholds uses to describe their clients.  That's the type of people that the Village of Arlington Heights thinks would be ideal to have living essentially across the street from Buffalo Grove High School, directly next door to a KinderCare Learning Center and merely steps away from several Buffalo Grove residential neighborhoods.

It's not right for one community to jeopardize the safety of another community by placing a dangerous use on its border, particularly when the border location is far from the population center of the first community, but directly adjacent to the population center of the latter community.

I'm going to do what I can to stop this project.  I will do everything that I can to get Thresholds to withdraw this particular proposal and to find a suitable location in Arlington Heights for their facility, such as near the center of Arlington Heights, near the services, such as transportation, that the new residents would benefit from, rather than stranding their clients in a remote corner of town.  I will also do everything that I can to rally opposition to this project from local officials, such as from the Village of Buffalo Grove and from School District 214, and from families in the area whose children will needlessly be placed in jeopardy by having a large quantity of severely mentally ill persons placed on the border of our Buffalo Grove community by the cynical officials of the Village of Arlington Heights.

The Daily Herald has a story about this issue in today's paper, entitled Arlington Hts. ponders housing for those with mental illness.

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