Housing Options For The Mentally-Ill In Evanston, Inc.

Housing Options For The Mentally-Ill In Evanston, Inc., doing business as Impact Behavioral Health Partners, is a nonprofit organization based in Evanston, Illinois, that receives federal grant funding to deliver housing, mental health support, and employment services to low-income individuals with serious mental illness and those experiencing homelessness, primarily as a prime recipient under HUD and SAMHSA grant programs (90% of recent awards) and occasionally as a subcontractor on evaluation and research projects.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development's Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development dominates Impact Behavioral Health Partners' funding portfolio, accounting for 36 of 41 recent awards. These HUD grants flow under the Continuum of Care Program (CFDA 14.267), which funds five program components: permanent housing (including permanent supportive housing for persons with disabilities and rapid rehousing), transitional housing, supportive services only, homeless management information systems, and homelessness prevention. Recent COC awards include a $604,987 project grant (September 2026 through August 2027), a $557,457 grant (September 2024 through August 2025), and a $125,812 grant (July 2026 through June 2027) for rapid rehousing, case management, and rental assistance serving vulnerable populations in the Evanston area, particularly Hispanic and African American communities. Beyond housing, Impact Behavioral Health Partners received a $2.6 million project grant from the SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services (award date September 30, 2024, through September 29, 2029) to deliver the Apoyo de Empleo Latino (ADEL) supported employment program, which provides evidence-based Individual Placement and Support employment services—including vocational assessment, benefits counseling, job search planning, and job maintenance support—to low-income adults with serious mental illness or co-occurring substance use disorders, targeting Hispanic females (70% of participants) and African American females in the Chicago area.

Activity has been modest over the past five years, ranging from two awards in 2022 to five in 2024, with a combined obligation of $11.2 million across all 41 awards. Two awards face ultimate completion inside the next twenty-four months, presenting limited recompete exposure. In its subcontractor role, Impact Behavioral Health Partners serves as an evaluation and research partner to The Rand Corporation on the "Building Evidence on Employment Strategies for Low-Income Families" contract (ACF-OPRE), with three sub-awards (December 2023, March 2024, August 2024) documenting evidence for innovative labor-market and economic-security interventions; the most recent modification raised the sub-award payment to $127,450. Impact Behavioral Health Partners also executes work through the HHS Program Support Center vehicle (4 task orders). The organization's federal footprint centers narrowly on grant-funded delivery of housing and employment support services to disadvantaged populations, with no federal contracts as a prime and minimal commercial subcontracting exposure.