Budgetary restraints for the state of Illinois have made the prospect of finding a new employment center for Evanston a difficult task following the close of the city’s local center last month.
The Illinois Department of Employment Security announced late last year that its Evanston office, located on 1615 Oak Ave., was closing. The announcement referred Evanston residents to service centers on 2444 West Lawrence Ave. in Chicago and 723 W. Algonquin Road in Arlington Heights.
Residents can visit any IDES service center and also access some services, such as unemployment benefits, job search assistance and business recruitment, through the IDES website and by phone.
The office, which served 30,634 clients in the fiscal year 2009, closes at a time when Evanston’s unemployment rate has been at or above 7.1 percent for almost two years.
“It was a big blow for a lot of people,” said Allison Rosen, a site coordinator for Lift-Evanston, a non-profit helping low-income families with employment, housing, public benefits and tax credits. “That IDES office was so accessible for public transportation, for people who walk, who don’t drive.”
The 10-year lease for the 8,036-square-foot building was set to expire last December, and with a $17,605 monthly rent, state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg (D-Evanston) said running the office was “far too excessive for the state and taxpayers’ appetite.”
Schoenberg said he is looking at ways to bring a service center back to Evanston. In June, he proposed moving the center and the South Branch of the Evanston Public Library into a single building in a cost-cutting measure for the city and the state. Since then, Evanston Public Library’s board announced it would close the South Branch on March 1 due to lack of funds.
“If anything, (the idea) has become even more attractive with the clock ticking down on the lease of the South Branch,” Schoenberg said. “Whether there is a city-state partnership that helps preserve a second branch library, it’s essential during these difficult economic times that we restore the state’s job services to the Evanston area as soon as possible.”
Schoenberg has met with the Library Board to discuss the city-state partnership. Trustee Dona Gerson, whom the Board appointed to work with Schoenberg, said the board was seriously considering the plan – something Schoenberg said he doubted months ago.
Gerson has called the Evanston Chamber of Commerce for suggestions for a possible location and is still looking for one. The Evanston Plaza Shopping Center on Dempster Street and Dodge Avenue – currently in receivership – has been touted as a potential site.
“That is an area that certainly has space,” Gerson said, adding that areas in southwest Evanston were “within the realm of possibility.”
One of the main hurdles in bringing back the federally-funded service center is finding a landlord willing to have the state of Illinois, a notoriously late bill-payer, as tenant. Schoenberg said the state twice tried to gauge the interest among commercial landlords in the area before December but didn’t receive a single response.
“There are just a lot of obstacles,” Gerson said. “The library has very modest funds. The state apparently could not be the one to sign the lease. It doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, but there are obstacles.”
