This past April, the La Grange trustees unanimously approved the BEDS Plus Permanent Supportive Housing Center to house the homeless, despite individuals’ concerns regarding its effect on in the surrounding community. Since then, the directors of the project have bought the land where the center will be built, at the southwest corner of East Avenue and Ogden Avenue, and are now focused on funding the housing center.

“We had about a third of the financing secured, and now we are waiting to hear back from other sources,” Beds Plus Executive Director Tina Rounds said.

On top of that Beds Plus will start a capital campaign, Rounds said. A capital campaign is a fundraising effort designed to raise a specified sum of money to meet the financial needs of, in this case, the Beds Plus Center. The campaign will start with small home-based parties, for people close to the cause or who have supported BEDS in the past, and will eventually host open parties for the general donor base. In the spring, BEDS will conduct a public written campaign.

If all goes well, Rounds said, the earliest the BEDS Plus Care Housing Project will break ground is early this summer. Then it will be about 12 months after that before it is up and running.

The Beds Plus Permanent Supportive Housing Center will provide a number of services for the homeless, including counseling, job training and referrals to area services. Additionally, there will be 20 permanent supportive housing units on the second and third floors. The candidates for these units are screened and selected by a committee, which includes at least one person who lives close to where the development will be, a social worker and representatives from the funding sources.

The candidates will be people who have a disabling condition, which could be physical or mental, people who have a history of homelessness and people who need the community that the Beds Plus Care development offers.

“We want to get people in a safe comfortable apartment in a secure environment, where they have someone working with them and counseling them,” Rounds said. “That environment will have the greatest likelihood for recovery, and for restoring homeless people back to everyday life.”

Although the development met opposition in the spring, as people were concerned that the possible negative consequences of the center would outweigh the positive consequences, the BEDS team is very hopeful that the center will be seamlessly incorporated into the community.

“We have not experienced any problems,” Meredith Onion, who lives down the street from two of the churches that provide overnight BEDS services, said. “We’ve  lived here for 22 years, raising children in this community, we just never experienced that, so I do not predict the BEDS Plus Permanent Supportive Housing Center will cause problems in the surrounding community.”