Public issues around the Albany Care psychiatric rehabilitation facility at 901 Maple Ave. loomed large over Wednesday’s Fourth Ward community meeting.
The meeting, held half a mile west of the facility at Robert Crown Community Center, came after a man was arrested Oct. 10 for allegedly selling drugs to Albany Care residents.
Over the years, the RoundTable has reported on staffing issues and allegations of poor management, with the quality of patient care at stake. The issues got bad enough that the Illinois Department of Public Health put the facility under an improvement plan in 2022. Safety concerns about public drinking, drug dealing and disturbances around the facility and at the nearby Grey Park aren’t new either. According to police call data compiled by Council Member Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th Ward), the number of calls spiked sharply in the third quarter of 2019 and has since gone through a series of “peaks and valleys.”
City officials at the meeting said they continue to have conversations with Albany Care management as well as with state lawmakers, about possible long-term solutions. But they readily acknowledged that there was no magic bullet, and there is only so much Evanston can do.
The context
Albany Care is a Specialized Mental Health Rehabilitation Facility (SMHRF), a long-term care facility where patients live on the premises while they receive treatment. The idea is not only to treat mental health issues the patients are experiencing, but to teach them life skills to allow them to eventually live on their own and take care of themselves.
As Nieuwsma noted, the state no longer allows new SMHRFs, leaving 19 existing SMHRFs grandfathered in.
According to Nieuwsma’s analysis, which issues got the highest number of complaints varied quarter to quarter, but some recurring issues included some version of people being disruptive, assault, battery and drug-dealing.
The number of complaints was at its highest in the third quarter of 2019. Since then, they’ve gone up and down, generally declining for two to four quarters in a row before going back up. There were two points when the number of complaints went below the pre-summer 2019 numbers — the second half of 2022 and the last quarter of 2023. The second half of 2022 was when it was directly under IDPH oversight. It was eventually released from that oversight after the state found that Albany Care improved.
“IDPH had monitors, [its] employees inside the building, every day,” Nieuwsma said. “We saw significant improvements in the third and fourth quarters of 2022.”
The council member blamed the increase on change in regulations that allowed SMHRFs to admit patients who have substance use disorder alongside other mental health issues, as well as management issues.
Deputy City Manager Carina Sanchez, whose areas of responsibility include health and human services, said that Evanston can make sure the building itself is up to code and do food inspections of its dining hall. Evanston Police Department and the recently formed Crisis Alternative Response Evanston (CARE) team can respond to complaints, but it can’t pull Albany Care’s license. That falls squarely in IDPH’s hands.
While she didn’t mention it, the state has historically been reluctant to close long-term care facilities, since it would mean having to figure out where to place hundreds of existing patients, and the closure of any facility limits the pool of options for new patients. Instead, IDPH prefers to work with providers to address the issues so that they can keep operating.
Incident response
Sanchez said that the city has been meeting monthly with Albany Care management and she has been personally swinging by the property to see for herself if the facility follows through on its commitments to Evanston.
Nieuwsma encouraged his constituents to report incidents to 911 or 311, depending on severity. While the police or CARE team might arrive too late to respond, it would create a record.
He said that he and Evanston officials have been in discussions with local state legislators about long-term solutions.
Evanston Police Commander Chelsea Brown said that the department responds to issues inside Albany Care, such as a patient complaining that they aren’t getting medication — and that they are legally required to report those kinds of incidents to IDPH. She said that calling in every single incident — and giving the best descriptions possible — is helpful even if the incident is over by the time officers arrive, because they can use that information in the future.
Will Reichel, who lives near Albany Care, said that he personally witnessed drug dealing and a confrontation involving current and former patients that led to one patient getting stabbed. He said he was frustrated that, in spite of what Nieuwsma and the city have done to try to improve the situation, nothing seems to change.
“Albany Care [patients] have a right for a safe environment, an environment that supports their recovery,” Reichel said. “Our kids have a right to safety.”
As the discussion wrapped up, Nieuwsma said that a SMHRF doesn’t have to be poorly run and create safety issues. He pointed to Skokie Meadows treatment center, which he visited in the past, as an example of a SMHRF he would be comfortable sending a loved one to.
“You could tell that it was better-run,” Nieuwsma said. “They’re subject to the same rules and has the same role [as Albany Care].”
He repeated a lament he voiced several times over the years — that closing Albany Care could create its own set of problems.
“Some of the people in Grey Park are folks who used to live in Albany Care who’ve been asked not to live there anymore,” Nieuwsma said. “What we’re dealing with here goes well beyond the City of Evanston, goes well beyond the State of Illinois. It’s that our mental care system is [handled by] private operators.”
Officials update 4th Ward residents on Albany Care is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston's most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.