West Englewood residents will now have access to free mental health and wellness resources with the opening of Healing House, a former abandoned, dilapidated bungalow that is now a three-story center offering youth, adult and family counseling.
After raising $400,000 for the renovation, the nonprofit Imagine Englewood If held a ribbon cutting Thursday for the center at 6421 S. Honore St. The building had been empty since at least 2016, according to property records, following a foreclosure after the previous owner’s death.
Imagine Englewood If Executive Director Michelle Rashad was in disbelief over what the organization accomplished.
“As a small nonprofit, this is something totally out of our capacity,” she said. “That’s the resilience of Englewood. We see what needs to be done. We don’t wait for anybody, but we communicate what needs to be done, and we start.”
What residents needed, she said, was mental health support. That support will be at the Healing House through services like healing circles, art therapy and individual therapy.
The wellness hub is located on Peace Campus, a network of 18 formerly vacant properties at West 64th and Honore Streets.
“We are going to be creative in how we are creating spaces for people to find community, express themselves and just get some additional support,” Rashad said. “And it complements everything else that we do on the campus, from providing people with basic needs support, to referrals to employment to housing. We know that when you’re in survival mode, you are literally … going through a lot mentally.”
The campus includes basketball courts, houses, a community garden and play area. The buildings all have uplifting names like Peace House, Inspiration House, Imagination House and, as of Thursday, Healing House.
The campus aims to provide wraparound services to residents like job readiness training, access to gardens for fresh food and safe places for kids to play. In a historically disinvested area like Englewood, these resources are key, Rashad said.
The project came to fruition through partnerships with Republic Services, the Chicago Bears’ Bears Cares fund and Whole Foods Market Foundation.
The basement-level of Healing House will be a fitness center. The first floor kitchen will offer healthy cooking demos and other rooms will serve as potential meeting spaces for groups like the Englewood Health and Wellness Task Force. Upper floors will largely serve as rooms for services such as individual sessions with social workers, or nurse practitioners providing basic clinical health services.
“All of our spaces of the peace campus are going to be multi-purpose, and so we’re also looking at health and wellness in that way too,” Rashad said.
“I grew up literally five blocks from here. And when I often think about what I would have wanted, or even what I needed as a kid — looking back … what we needed is this. So this is us on a journey to really end those cycles of generational trauma. It just starts with opening these doors.”