* ProPublica and Capitol News Illinois…

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law on Friday that strengthens the range of penalties that a state watchdog can mete out for health care employees who conspire to hide abuse or interfere with investigations by the state police or internal oversight bodies.

The legislation was introduced following an investigative series by Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises Midwest and ProPublica into rampant abuses and cover-ups at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center, a state-run institution in southern Illinois that houses people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental illnesses. The new law applies to employees at state-run institutions and at privately operated community agencies for people with developmental disabilities and mental illnesses that operate under the oversight of the Illinois Department of Human Services and its Office of the Inspector General.

The news organizations detailed how employees had lied to investigators, leaked sensitive investigative details, retaliated against people who reported abuse and sought to indoctrinate new workers into the cover-up culture. Employees who engaged in such actions made it difficult to pursue cases of patient abuse, yet they rarely faced serious consequences. IDHS Inspector General Peter Neumer suggested the change in law last year.

The new law allows the OIG to report workers who engage in such misconduct to Illinois’ existing Health Care Worker Registry, which would bar them from working in any health care setting in the state.

The registry identifies any health care worker who has been barred from working with vulnerable populations in any long-term care setting, such as state-operated developmental centers or group homes. Under prior law, workers could be barred because they had been found to have engaged in financial exploitation; neglect that is considered “egregious”; or physical or sexual abuse. The new law adds “material obstruction” of an investigation to the list of findings that can be reported to the registry, which is maintained by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Pritzker signed the bill on the same day the IDHS inspector general released a 34-page report that recommended a “top to bottom analysis” of all processes related to the reporting of abuse and neglect at Choate “because at the present time there appear to be fundamental problems with all aspects of that system.”

* Scott Holland…

The report says nothing new about Choate: staff repeatedly and systematically covered up their own abuse and neglect of residents, state state is scrambling to try to make things marginally better and ultimately, per the report, “a fundamental overhaul of the system is needed to establish a new culture where the reporting of abuse is automatic and not an act of courage.”

Enacting a zero-tolerance policy for abusing residents shouldn’t be controversial, but apparently we must first clear lower bars.

Unfortunately, the takeaways from Friday are much more broad and less impactful on the people actually suffering in Anna. That DHS made the report so easily accessible is commendable but is more accurately another example of something that simply ought to be standard procedure. Not just at DHS, but at every state agency.

Pulling that thread yields another lesson: administrators in every corner of state government should read the Choate report to identify possible commonalities with their own agencies. What are the systemic vulnerabilities and potential solutions?

* While we’re on the topic of human services, let’s shift gears to to WGLT’s report…

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is trying a new approach to fill hundreds of jobs.

The child welfare agency hosted an on-the-spot job clinic Monday in Bloomington. It held a similar event in Rockford last week and might schedule additional job fairs in the future, depending on how many positions it can fill. […]

According to data provided by DCFS, the agency handled nearly 98,300 case investigations in 2022 and has managed nearly 47,400 cases so far this year. That marks a 14% increase over pre-pandemic levels (2019). […]

Despite the hiring needs, the agency’s staff levels are currently at a 15-year high with more than 3,100 workers.

Strokosch said the agency offered jobs to nearly 200 applicants at its event in Rockford. A DCFS official said the agency hopes to hire 50 new workers after Monday’s event in Bloomington.

The next hiring event will be in La Salle on Thursday.

* Block Club Chicago…

Migrants and volunteers who work on the front lines with them are sounding the alarm on conditions at some of the city’s temporary shelters, saying people are served moldy food, don’t have hot water and aren’t allowed to accept donations from neighbors. […]

Migrants told Block Club the conditions at Leone Beach House, 1222 W. Touhy Ave. in Rogers Park, and the Inn of Chicago Hotel, 162 E. Ohio St. in Streeterville, are concerning.

Two women who have stayed at both shelters said they were given visibly moldy food and insufficient amounts of food, which they photographed. They said they have to shower and bathe their kids with cold water and can’t bring anything given to them by volunteers or anything they’ve bought themselves inside the shelter.

While staying at Leone Beach, the women said they slept on the floor. At the Inn of Chicago, they said there are beds and bunks to fit three families in one hotel room.

People at Inn of Chicago are also restricted to only 20 pieces of clothes per family — meaning a family of four could have five pieces each — and can only have their clothes laundered once a week, the women said.

“The police stations treated us better,” one woman said, who asked to remain anonymous in fear of getting in trouble. “But at the shelters they wont let [volunteers] give us anything.”

* Sun-Times…

Even as City Hall has changed administrations, unhoused individuals continue to be locked out of O’Hare. In late May, four Chicago officers remained stationed outside of the Blue Line station.

A Chicago police officer was seen guiding a man wearing a coat and carrying a small duffel bag back to the train station where a worker for Haymarket Center — which provides services for unhoused individuals — handed out sandwiches to a group of men.

In a statement, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration said Friday that it was evaluating laws and security policies with other airports to guide what happens at O’Hare.

“Mayor Johnson is committed to the safety of all airport passengers and employees and he is working to identify solutions to the City’s housing crisis,” the statement read.

His office also said that Johnson still supports proposed policies like the financial assistance program Bring Chicago Home because he “believes it can deliver real solutions to supporting unsheltered people and reducing homelessness.”

* WTTW…

The Chicago Urban League released its 2023 “State of Black Chicago” report, which measures outcomes in health, education, income,and housing for Black Chicagoans as compared to other racial groups.

The findings indicate there is still a lot of work to be done in advancing equity for Black residents. Among the issues highlighted in the research is persistent and overwhelming residential segregation, poverty rates triple that of White Chicagoans, worse educational outcomes for Black Chicago Public Schools students and lower average life expectancy for Black residents. […]

While the nonprofit West Side United works to close the health gap in Chicago, Executive Director Ayesha Jaco said it’s a focus that ends up having much broader implications. […]

Jaco said she hopes the Johnson administration will continue to take cues from Black communities in deciding what solutions will work for improving health outcomes.

“COVID exacerbated what we already knew to be true,” Jaco said. “The same communities that had the higher rates of diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, infant mortality are also the same communities that had the higher rates of COVID mortality and morbidity. And so COVID just blew that out of the water.”

* Journal Courier…

Almost 2 million people in Illinois receive SNAP food assistance, but several hundred thousand are expected to lose access to it at the end of October, after pandemic-related extensions expire.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated the debt ceiling agreement would put almost 750,000 adults ages 50 to 54 at risk of losing food assistance because they do not meet the SNAP work reporting requirements.

Steve Erickson, executive director of Feeding Illinois, said most people are not just taking advantage of the system to get food. They have real needs and are often already working. […]

Apart from SNAP changes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children will need an additional $615 million in the coming fiscal year to meet the program’s expanding caseload.