The brand-new one-bedroom apartment at 2040 Brown St. in Evanston looks like a thousand other modern rental units: sparkling clean white walls, sleek gray wall-to-wall carpeting, a handsome granite-look kitchen countertop.
This ”smart” apartment, though, is packed with special engineering that lets it do things other apartments can`t. The touch of a lever brings an overhead cabinet sliding down the wall to rest on the kitchen counter. Clothes rods glide downward for easy access. Refrigerator shelves slide out like drawers-all the better to reach those foil-wrapper mystery leftovers hiding in the back.
The apartment is one of 33 similar units at Hill Arboretum Apartments, which opened its doors to severely physically disabled tenants in January. Such specially outfitted apartment buildings are rare in the Chicago area: The city estimates that at least 5,000 to 10,000 disabled people are in need of wheelchair-accessible housing.
What makes this building even more singular is that this living center was planned as a work center as well, with facilities to hook tenants up with off-site employers through telecommunications and computers.
”Employers think of hiring the disabled and they think they`ll need a lot of space and special equipment. We want to show them that they can hire the disabled cost-effectively,” said Don Gustafson, president of the board of directors of the Over the Rainbow Association, a non-profit advocacy group for the disabled that sponsored the development of Hill Arboretum Apartments.
Today, the apartment complex is a showplace of sorts that demonstrates the possibilities of independent living for the wheelchair-bound. But its story demonstrates just how tough it is to fund, build and operate such housing facilities-and why there aren`t more of them around.
Hill Arboretum represents an unusual private-government effort involving the Over the Rainbow Association; Evanston Hospital Corp., which owned the building that houses the apartments; and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which owns the two-acre site on which the building stands.
Throw in the federal bureaucracy in the form of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the City of Evanston and various community groups with opinions of their own, and you can start to appreciate the task of orchestrating cooperation among all the interest groups involved.
The one-story, red-brick building in west Evanston was once Evanston Community Hospital. When the hospital ceased operations in 1979, the building was acquired by Evanston Hospital Corp., which intended to establish a satellite facility there. When those plans didn`t materialize, EHC donated the $2.3 million building to the Over the Rainbow Association, which had been seeking a site for wheelchair-accessible apartments.
Proving itself
But it wasn`t quite that simple. Almost 200 other organizations also wanted the building. Before it won the nod from EHC, the association had to prove it could get the necessary financing for reconstruction, obtain a change in zoning from Evanston, arrange a lease transfer from the Water Reclamation District and get neighborhood residents behind the project.
Part of that task fell to Gustafson and his wife, Sue, who had a special stake in the outcome. Their son, Bob, 30, has cerebral palsy, as do many of the tenants. Sue had been involved with the Over the Rainbow Association for years; Don has devoted full-time efforts to the group since retiring in 1985 from a career as a buyer for Sears.
HUD in 1986 set aside $682,000 in grant money to retrofit the building for disabled tenants. The grant application was nudged through HUD by U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon (D-Ill.), U.S. Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill) and U.S. Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who is himself disabled with a war injury that left him with limited use of his right arm.
To qualify for HUD funds, the project had to meet the agency`s strict guidelines for wheelchair-access buildings, an exacting and sometimes frustrating process that burned out the original architects in less than a year. A second architectural firm experienced in HUD projects was called in, and a housing consultant was hired to smooth communications between the agency and the developers.
The association hopes that its experience will provide a shortcut for other groups seeking to develop housing for the disabled. ”We want to produce a book of guidelines on how to work with HUD,” Gustafson said.
The renovation project also received funds from the City of Evanston and other organizations and individuals. Much of what makes the complex a beacon for disabled living, though, is the inventiveness of U.S. manufacturers.
Donated brainpower
An engineer from Whirlpool Corp., for example, designed the mechanism that raises and lowers the kitchen cabinets, donating 98 pages of engineering drawings and taking time out from his retirement to supervise completion of the job. Ted Hoyer Corp. developed the first computer-operated, electronic version of its mechanical patient lift to transfer residents from wheelchair to bed for Hill Arboretum.
In fact, the units are so filled with labor-saving gizmos that they attracted the attention of TV host Bob Vila, who plans to include them in a segment of his ”Home Again” show.
Still to come is construction of the Job Resource Center. Ground-breaking for the center is anticipated for July, after the architect`s plans receive HUD approval.
Three major Chicago-area corporations have expressed interest in providing jobs through the center; however, their names won`t be released until construction is farther along.
”One of the employers said he`d like to hire everyone there,” said Kathy Koster, a spokeswoman for the apartment complex.
But even that kind of good will won`t alleviate what the complex`s sponsors already are finding a major problem: the necessity to turn away would-be tenants.
Choosing tenants
All tenants must meet selection criteria set by the Over the Rainbow Association`s board, because the units are reserved for those who are severely physically challenged. Wheelchair athletes, for example, will have to look elsewhere for housing. But neither does the building accept tenants who are so compromised that they can`t perform any of the tasks of daily living.
All of the building`s residents are paraplegic or quadriplegic. About half have cerebral palsy. Others have extremely limited mobility due to multiple sclerosis or trauma, or are amputees.
Most of the tenants require the services for at least part of each day from a personal attendant, whose salary is paid by subsidies of the Illinois Department of Rehabilitation Services. Some of the residents have outside income, but even so, the average income per resident is only about $450 per month, said Koster. Most of that money comes from Social Security benefits.
Residents must pay one-third of their monthly income for rent; the balance of the rent is subsidized by HUD under Section 8 of that agency`s guidelines. Additional fees are charged for the one meal a day served in the building`s dining room.
Some of the current tenants, who range in age from their early 20s to their mid-50s, moved to Hill Arboretum from nursing homes, often the only living option for the severely disabled. ”It costs the state $30,000 a year to keep a person in a nursing home,” said Gustafson. ”It`s an expensive solution to the problem.”
”We don`t say this is the answer for everyone,” said Sue Gustafson,
”but it is for some.”
A second chance
You won`t get any argument on that from James Hammond, 55, one of the first tenants to move in when the building opened in January. The former printer`s engraver has lost both legs to diabetes since 1988 and had been living in a long-term care facility.
”Hey, it`s great here!” he said. ”You don`t need a second opinion on that. Let`s call it a second chance. You`ve got your independence here. We`re here to help each other when we can.”
”We do help each other out a lot,” said Cindy Berner, who moved to the building from her mother`s home in suburban Sauk Village. The 23-year-old is wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy. ”I have learned a lot about different organizations and what`s out there for me since I came here.”
As in many apartment buildings, the tenants here tend to be neighborly. They stop to chat as they pass in the hallways. They drop in on each other to borrow videotapes. There is even talk of a romance brewing. But for visible evidence of the building`s liberating effect on the lives of its disabled tenants, Koster directs a visitor`s attention to some fresh dents in a wall.
”Wheelchair races,” she explained.
