Landmark 070324 by Wednesday Journal

Constance Morris House reopens after renovations

e domestic violence shelter in LaGrange is now open to all who need it

By TRENT BROWN Staff Re porter

After the C onstance Morris House closed for renovat i ons last Au g ust, i ts first set of them since it move d i nto i ts cu rrent location in 1988, Pillars C ommunity Health has reopened the d omestic violenc e shelter in LaGrang e.

By LUZANE DRAUGHON Staff Reporter

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In Oak Park, residents can once again celebrate Inde p endence Day when the annual parade kicks off at 10 a.m. on

T he organization celebrated the shelter’s new look with a ribbon c utting the morning of June 27, one day before the house opened its doors again to survivo rs, followe d by an open house for attendees to see the new spac e. Pillars Director of Marketing S tefin S teberl said in an email that the organization move d the shelter ’s residents i nto local hotels wh i le the renovat i ons we re underway.

The new facilities at the shelter include a new community kitchen, new laundry facilities, new offices and rooms for staf f and new indoor and outdoor play areas

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CONSTANCE

Protecting lives from page 1

for children living at the shelter

The renovations, designed by LaGrangebased (r)evolution architecture, llc, also moved the shelter away from its previous dormitory style of living, where residents had to share bedrooms and use communal bathrooms. Now, the Constance Morris House is comprised of private, single rooms with their own bathrooms and doors that lock. Some of the rooms are conjoined with doors, allowing two rooms to be used as a larger suite for families seeking shelter together or as single rooms with the door locked, depending on who lives in the shelter at the time.

The switch to private rooms for residents “ensures that we can continue to provide a safe and supportive environment, helping them to rebuild their lives with dignity and hope,” said Pillars CEO and President Angela Curran in a written statement.

The Constance Morris House is located at 327 Bluf f Ave. in LaGrange. Pillars previously kept the shelter’s address a secret, refer ring to it only as an “undisclosed location” to protect people seeking refuge from their abusers. But as of the shelter’s reopening, the organization has undergone a “significant shift in philosophy” to make the house’s location accessible to survivors fleeing domestic violence, Steberl said in an email to the Landmark.

“By making our location public, we ensure that survivors know exactly where they can get the help they need, making it safer and reducing the stigma often associated with seeking shelter,” he wrote. “This change also addresses the challenges and struggles of keeping shelter locations confidential, which can sometimes hinder timely access to support.”

At the ribbon cutting ceremony, Curran, Pillars Vice President of Domestic and Sexual Violence Services Kim Stephens and for mer Pillars Board of Directors Chair Bana Atassi spoke about the history of the Constance Morris House and the impact it’s had since it first opened under another name in Brookfield in 1979.

“If you can, try to imagine a world where everyone is free from fear and violence. A world where survivors of domestic abuse are not just surviving but thriving. The vision is within our reach,” Stephens said in her speech. “Many survivors must flee [their homes] suddenly, without time to

Vice President of Domestic and Sexual Violence Services Kim Stephens (center) cut the r ibbon at the Constance Morri s House’s reop ening af ter all of the da y’s speeches had been given.

prepare or find a safe place to stay. Isolated by their abusers, they often have nowhere to turn. The Constance Morris House is there for them.”

In her speech, Curran told a story from early 2018 — just after the merger that for med Pillars Community Health — when she visited the Constance Morris House with Stephens and Lynn Siegel, a for mer senior vice president of domestic and sexual violence services for the organization.

“The rooms were dormitory-style, and, frankly, the shelter was looking sad and showing its age. Kim reminds me that I turned to them both and said, ‘If there’s one thing I hope to do in my new tenure as CEO, I want it to be a new shelter,’” she said. “There is so much for us to be proud of at Pillars Community Health, but for me personally today, being able to fulfill that promise to renovate Constance Morris House is one of the proudest and most fulfilling moments of my tenure with this organization.”

Curran went on to thank a list of people whose “open hearts, open checkbooks, smart minds and strong hands” contributed to the domestic violence shelter’s renovations, including many Pillars staf f members and the architects and contractors who worked on the renovations

Among those named was for mer Illinois House of Re presentatives Minority Leader Jim Durkin, who Curran said secured $750,000 in state capital funds “to seed this project.”

“We were able to leverage those dollars to use Illinois Department of Human Ser-

vices domestic violence prevention and intervention grants for one-time costs to furnish and equip the new shelter,” she said.

According to the Illinois Catalog of State Financial Assistance, the state’s Department of Human Services awarded nearly $1.5 million to Pillars in domestic violence prevention and intervention grants for fiscal year 2024.

Curran also gave her thanks to Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García, whose office secured $1 million in Congressional Community Project Funding for the Constance Morris House’s renovations

“Constance Morris House is now a beautiful, trauma-informed space, but it’s just a nice, new building unless you have support to provide services every day and support our fantastic team here,” she said. “While we all envision a community without the hor rors of domestic violence, having this place of sanctuary and healing lets everyone know that to end domestic violence, domestic violence cannot be hidden in the shadows. And it lets domestic violence survivors know that they are not alone.”

To learn more about the Constance Morris House and the services it can provide to people seeking shelter, visit Pillars Community Health’s website, pillarscommunityhealth.org. If you need help escaping domestic violence, Pillars provides three free, 24-hour hotlines. To reach the organization’s main line and crisis hotline, call 708-745-5277. To reach the confidential domestic violence hotline, call 708-485-5254. To reach the confidential sexual assault hotline, call 708-482-9600.

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Compiled by Grace Har ty

Montessori school in Riverside can have up to 12 students

e planning and zoning commission approved the increase for Intiraymi Spanish Montessori

By TRENT BROWN Staff Reporter

Intiraymi Spanish Montessori in Riverside is now allowed to have up to 12 students at a time, a 50% increase from its former village-given limit of eight students.

At i ts June 26 meeting, the Rive rside p lanning and zoning c ommission approved the measure unanimously to gr ant the Spanish-language school a special use pe rm it, allowing it to enroll the extra four students. A similar pe rm it would be required for other changes to the school’s operations in the f uture, as it is located at 53 Northg ate Rd. in a resid ential area of the village

According to village documents, In -

t iraymi, wh ich is owned and operated by Mila gros Andrews and her husband , Richard Andrews, has acce p ted students in Rive rside since it first opened in 2009.

Vi llage Planner A nne Cyran said the two rece ived a special use pe rm it in 2014 to r un their private school with “no more than eight children on the property at one time.”

In March 2024, Cyran said village staf f learned that I ntiraymi’s license from the I llinois Department of Children and Family Services allows the school to have up to 15 children on the premises at a time; of those, only 12 may be enrolled as students wh i le the other three must be students attending school f ull-time elsewhere who are being watched at Int iraymi before or after school, such as the siblings of Intiraymi students or the children of Montessori school staf f.

As pa rt of their application, the c oup le ag reed to amend their DCFS license to state only 12 students are allowe d on school premises if the c ommission sought to make that a c ondition of gr ant-

ing the pe rm it . Cyran said that around the same time, staf f also saw social media p osts mad e on the school’s a ccounts showing up to 14 students at a time on the property, wh ich is more than the eight Rive rside allows the school to have

“The village ’s inquiry i nto the school’s operations was prompted by an inquiry from an outside agency re ga rding the status of lead pipes within the school, and once the village d etermined that the school is operating beyond the capacity approved by the village b oard in 2014, staf f c ontacted the p etitioners to address the i ssue,” she said. “Just to clarify, there was not a c omplaint made about the operations of the school. It was an inquiry about the school’s lead pipe s that led to staf f looking i nto the capacity of the school.”

After the village became aware of Intiraymi going over capacity, staf f infor med the Andrewses that they would have to limit the number of children at the school to eight or apply for the permit in

question at the meeting, Cyran said.

As pa rt of i ts application materials fo r the new pe rm it, the school included 19 letters of recommendation from neighbors and parents of students and for mer students. S ome spoke to Mila gros Andrews’ teaching abilities wh i le other s d escribed quiet, polite pick-up and dropof f times at the school. Included among them we re two letters from residents who live at 57 and 49 Northg ate Road, the two houses directly adjacent to the Montessori school. At the meeting, Cyra n said village staf f had rece ived two more letters that day in suppo rt of Intiraymi. One for mer Rive rside resident, wh o said he live d next to I ntiraymi from March 2018 to April 2023, spoke in suppo rt of the school during public c omment. T he man said he b eli eved he had submitted a letter of suppo rt but wanted to make sure his thoughts we re heard.

“A ll I c an say is, as I said in my letter, when we move d next door, I didn ’t know,

See MONTESSORI on page 16

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