Clearbrook opens new home in Woodstock, giving disabled residents 1st taste of independence

For the first time, Jackie Medina is living away from her family.

Her residence is a community integrated living home in Woodstock, which she shares with three other women, one of whom, Sammi Huffman, also is living on her own for the first time.

Medina previously lived with her father in a senior neighborhood for 18 years before she moved into the home, and said she was the only person in the neighborhood with a disability.

The Woodstock home, which opened a few months ago, is part of program providing those with developmental disabilities the chance to live in a residence that is “integrated with the neighborhood and community,” according to Clearbrook’s website. The Arlington Heights-based social service agency runs nearly five dozen homes like the one in Woodstock, according to its website.

“It’s better that I’m here,” Medina said.

She’s still getting adjusted to her new digs, and is looking to get involved with volunteering with the Red Cross and to find a job. But she said she’s also had difficulty trying to coordinate hanging out with people she knew before moving to Woodstock from the south suburbs.

“I don’t like being cooped up” in the house, Medina said.

She used to work as a grocery bagger and said she “enjoyed having a job.”

Kris Klemme, another resident, also is looking for a job, and said she previously worked at a Red Robin. Klemme and another resident, Brittany Woods, lived in other homes before but this one is a better fit for them.

Woods likes to cook and bake, and Medina raved about the fettuccine alfredo Woods made from scratch, saying other versions of the dish “did not come close” to Woods’s.

Klemme said she enjoys volleyball and karate, among other hobbies. She recently won Illinois Miss Amazing, a pageant that aims to “provide opportunities for girls and women with disabilities to build confidence and self-esteem.” Klemme is scheduled to compete in the national pageant in Rosemont in July and wore her sash and a crown when the Northwest Herald spoke with her.

Clearbrook has an extensive presence in McHenry County and also receives funding from the county’s mental health board.

That funding, combined with community development block grants, has enabled the agency to expand in McHenry County. In Cook County, the agency is minimally expanding, Emily Fencl, the organization’s vice president of program services, said.

The process to get a community integrated living arrangement, or CILA, home ready takes about six to nine months, and part of the matchmaking process is making sure everyone is a good fit for each other, since the intent is to have them live there for the long haul.

The Woodstock residents are very social and have gotten close since moving in, Woods said. The group will go explore Woodstock Square, including Rocket Fizz and Read Between the Lynes. They’re looking forward to going to the farmer’s market once it opens up on the Square.

While the agency gets outside funding, the CILA homes come with great expense to organizations like Clearbrook. The agency has to purchase and furnish a property, install fire alarms and sprinklers and hire staff members to work it. Each home needs at least four staff members, Fencl said. At the Woodstock home, if a resident is there, a staff member is present.

All of those are costs to the agency which, if they’re lucky, might get grants to help cover.

And while Medina and her housemates were able to find a housing placement, there are many others who haven’t. About 16,000 people statewide are on the waiting list to receive state funding for services, agency officials said.

In addition to revenues from the new McHenry County Mental Health Board sales tax coming in lower than anticipated, Medicaid cuts are being floated at the federal level. Clearbrook doesn’t know enough about how those cuts could affect anything for them.

“Clearbrook is business as usual,” Fencl said.

Huffman’s mother, Sandy Huffman of Beach Park, said she had been trying to get her daughter funding known as Prioritization of Urgency of Need for Services from the state since she was 14; she’s now 32. The funding database, called PUNS, is where those with disabilities who need services can register.

It’s been a long journey for the Huffmans, who said they had to sue their daughter’s school for access to the transition program when their daughter was getting ready to enter it. Now that their daughter is in Woodstock, it’s the first time she’s lived away from her parents.

Sammi Huffman’s funding was partially approved in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fully approved in 2021. The family connected with Clearbrook a couple years ago and while they were waiting for a placement, the agency had a person come to her house to work with her.

It took two years for the placement in Woodstock to open up, Sandy Huffman said, and Sammi Huffman took to the house “better than I thought.”

Her daughter is “in the perfect house for her,” Sandy Huffman said.