December 28, 2023

Thank you to each and every one of you who responded to CCHCC’s call to action earlier this month to support Hope Village! Your efforts made a difference!
 
We are now at the final hurdle, and, with your support, we can clear it!
 
Where things stand:
 
We are seeking the Urbana City Council’s final approval of a permanent “Planned Unit Development” for Hope Village. Earlier this month, on Monday, December 18, the Urbana City Council’s Committee of the Whole (COW) met and considered the Hope Village Planned Unit Development application. Thanks to an outpouring of support, the City Council voted 6 to 1 at its COW meeting to recommend the approval of the Hope Village application to the City Council at its upcoming meeting on Tuesday, January 2, 2024.
 
Your support is needed to help make Hope Village a reality!
 
Right now, we are seeking final approval of a permanent “Planned Unit Development” from the Urbana City Council so that we can proceed with building the Hope Village homes and development.
 
The Urbana City Council meets on Tuesday, January 2, 2024 at 7 p.m. and will be voting on the Hope Village permanent Planned Unit Development.
 
Please see below to learn more about what you can do to help with this exciting new development! You can also learn more about Hope Village further below.
 
How you can help:
 
You can help Hope Village and the individuals it will serve by contacting the Urbana City Council by the morning of Tuesday, January 2, 2024, and asking them to approve the Hope Village Planned Unit Development.
 
It does not matter whether you are a resident of Urbana or not – the City Council is taking comment from people throughout our community.
 
Who to contact: You can send your message to the Urbana City Clerk to have it read into the record at the meeting on January 2. You can send your message to desandefur@urbanaillinois.us
 
The message: If you wish to support Hope Village, you can send an email to the City Clerk at the address above with a message like this: “Please read my message into the record. I am writing to urge the Urbana City Council  to support Hope Village by approving the Hope Village Planned Unit Development. We need more permanent housing for our most vulnerable community members.” (If you are a resident of the City of Urbana, please include that in your message.) Feel free to use this message, if you agree, or write it in your own words.
 
If you do not want your message read out loud, but you do want it to reach the entire City Council, you can send your message here: CityCouncil@UrbanaIllinois.us  It does, however, help to have the message read into the record.
 
If you are a resident of Urbana, you can include that in your message as well. And you can take an additional step and reach out directly to your City Council member, as a constituent, and urge them to support Hope Village. You can find City Council members’ direct emails here (be sure to scroll down to that section).

If you are a resident of Urbana, but you are unsure which ward you live in, and who your City Council representative is, you can look at the City of Urbana Ward Map to find  your location and your Ward number here.

About Hope Village:
 
Hope Village is a development of 30 “tiny” homes and a community center that will provide Permanent Supportive Housing to individuals who are medically fragile and experiencing chronic homelessness. Hope Village will fill a gap in our housing system for homeless individuals. Individuals in this population have lifespans that are significantly shorter, by 20 or 30 years. They get sick and often die much sooner from preventable and treatable conditions. Hope Village is an innovative model developed from the perspective that “Housing is healthcare”.
 
The idea for Hope Village came about as a result of CCHCC’s work in 2021 with medically-fragile individuals who were experiencing chronic homelessness and who were unable to be housed in area shelters.
 
CCHCC staff worked with these individuals, providing health care case management and support in trying to get them housed. We saw first-hand how difficult it was for medically-fragile individuals to find suitable and accessible housing that also provided the intensive case management support needed to stay housed.
 
CCHCC has partnered with Carle and the UIUC to create Hope Village, in order to close this housing gap in our community for our most vulnerable residents.
 
Hope Village will provide 30 Permanent Supportive Housing homes to medically-fragile individuals experiencing chronic homelessness, who have high medical needs and who need intensive case management support.
 
Hope Village has been developed using trauma-informed design for both the individual homes and the village itself, to create a welcoming, peaceful, healthy, and secure environment conducive to healing and recovery. CCHCC will be providing the intensive case management services at Hope Village. Carle will provide health services on site, as well as fresh produce through their mobile grocery. UIUC is helping to make the homes and the village as energy efficient and conducive to good health as possible. And together, we are creating an innovative model of housing that allows for aging-in-place and health improvement.
 
Hope Village is located in north Urbana, just north of Carver Drive. While Carver Drive is in Champaign, the former agricultural property located just north of Carver Drive is in Urbana, where Hope Village is being built.
 
To see what Hope Village and the homes look like, you can go here.

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
Claudia Lennhoff
Executive Director
Champaign County Health Care Consumers