Healthcare Alternative Systems Men's Residential Program Men's Recovery Home

About this Recovery Home

Healthcare Alternative Systems Men's Residential Program in Chicago, Illinois, is a recovery home for men. It stands in Cook County, on Humboldt Boulevard on the city's Northwest Side.

Men's Residential Care on Humboldt Boulevard

The program is at 1949 North Humboldt Boulevard, and residents live on site for its duration. Humboldt Boulevard forms part of the ring of landscaped boulevards laid out across Chicago's West and Northwest Sides in the nineteenth century to link the large West Side parks, so the house sits on a residential parkway rather than a commercial artery.

A Twenty-Eight Day Structure

Healthcare Alternative Systems runs the men's program on a twenty-eight day structure combining counseling, job training and case management. The operator describes it as a supportive, highly structured recovery environment. Job training inside a residential program is the practical part of that: a man leaving with a route into work leaves with what holds the next housing in place. Case management is the other half, because the documents, benefits and appointments a man needs on the outside are far easier to assemble while he still has an address and someone helping him do it.

An Organization Founded in 1974

Healthcare Alternative Systems began in 1974 as a response to health disparities among Chicago's Hispanic community. IAEC lists Healthcare Alternative Systems among Illinois' certified recovery residence providers, so the housing carries a recovery residence credential and not only the organization's clinical standing. Those are separate things, and a man weighing a program run by a large behavioral health organization is entitled to know which one applies to the house he would be living in.

Housing First, Without Preconditions

The organization applies a housing-first approach with no preconditions or program-completion requirements attached. Recovery coaches, housing specialists and peer mentors form part of the staffing model, which puts people whose work is housing itself inside the same building as the recovery support.

Cook County Recovery Housing on the Northwest Side

Humboldt Boulevard runs between the Logan Square and Humboldt Park neighborhoods on Chicago's Northwest Side, which is where this men's recovery home sits within Cook County. Chicago is the seat of Cook County, and this address is well inside the city rather than out at its edge, so a man in the program stays within reach of the neighborhoods and the people he already knows.

The Companion Residence on Milwaukee Avenue

Healthcare Alternative Systems also operates a men's transitional housing residence at 1866 North Milwaukee Avenue.