Content warning: This story contains mentions of childhood abuse and neglect, including sexual violence.

Former 9th Ward resident Lucy Doyle grew up slipping through the slats of a wooden fence on Washington Street to visit her best friend, who lived next door at Rice Children’s Center.

Now called Lydia Home, the residential facility provides emotional and behavioral therapy to foster children who have experienced developmental trauma.

Today, Lydia is home to 36 children, ages 8 to 16, and shares a building with an Evanston/Skokie School District 65 institution that bears its former name. The fence Doyle once sneaked through regularly has since been fortified.

“It hurt my heart, both then and now, that so much sneaking was required for our friendship to exist,” Doyle said at a recent City Council meeting. “As a kid, it felt like there was a huge divide between the people who own property on the block and the children growing up in the Rice Center.”

Ninth Ward lot debate highlights community concerns

The relationship between the children residing at Lydia and their Washington Street neighbors received increased scrutiny this month while City Council debated the future of a vacant lot a few hundred feet away.

The lot, which sits near the corner of Washington Street and Asbury Avenue, sparked a heated debate between City Council and Washington Street residents this month. At its April 14 meeting, the council approved selling the parcel to Evanston Township High School for its Geometry in Construction program in an 8-1 vote. Students in the program plan to construct a single-family home that will be sold to a middle-income buyer.

City officials, including Ald. Juan Geracaris (9th), said this decision aligns with the city’s goals to increase affordable housing and offer hands-on job training for ETHS students.

But many neighbors, including Doyle, proposed an alternative vision over two years ago. They suggested building a community garden designed in partnership with Lydia students and staff, an outdoor space they said could help bridge the perceived distance between Lydia’s residents and the surrounding community.

“Over the years, that divide has increased,” Doyle said. “The fence has gotten higher, and the distance seems more imposing. This is all to keep the kids safe, but the price seems to be a potentially greater emotional and social distance between the residents on the block and the residents at the center.”

For Washington Street residents like Beth Cerny, the council’s decision raised practical concerns about whether the lot could support new development. 

She said the parcel feels more like “a person’s backyard” than a buildable site and emphasized its lack of alley access and designated parking spaces.

“There’s so many reasons why this is a bad idea for this block,” Cerny said. “It has nothing to do with the fact that it’s an affordable home.”

Although Cerny and her neighbors said they supported affordable housing in principle, former Ald. Devon Reid (8th) questioned the sincerity of their concern for children living at Lydia at the meeting, suggesting their opposition to the GIC project represented NIMBY — not in my backyard — culture and exploited the neighborhood’s most “vulnerable” residents.

Cerny said she considers the controversy a “microcosm” of Evanston politics, adding she is now skeptical of the city’s commitment to progressive values.

“I spent my whole life thinking this is the greatest place on Earth,” Cerny said. “When I realized how the politics of this city were being run, it was like finding out that Santa Claus isn’t real.”

Lydia balances safety and community

In response to Reid’s criticism, Doyle pointed to foster children who frequently enter neighbors’ backyards after leaving Lydia without permission. She said the city has treated the facility’s residents “as if they’re invisible.”

“Growing up, the only poor people that lived on my block were all behind the fence,” Doyle said. “That’s still happening.”

When opposing the GIC project, many Washington Street residents argued building a new home would worsen existing problems on the block, including congestion caused by law enforcement dispatches. 

These dispatches occur because police are tasked with locating Lydia’s foster children after staff members lose sight of residents who have left the facility without permission.

Elissa Garcia, director of residential services at Lydia, agrees children living in Lydia could benefit from stronger relationships with neighbors but said that any plans for community engagement must consider their physical and emotional safety.

“We’re not naive enough to think we can always keep them (inside the fence) or that (doing so) would be desirable,” Garcia said. “But we’re trying to keep these kids safe long enough for them to receive the treatment that they need.”

The center’s secure perimeter, including its new-and-improved fence, was built when Lydia agreed to take in children with more acute clinical needs, Garcia said. For Lydia’s residents, the fence represents a protective boundary during an incredibly vulnerable time, she added.

Many of the children living at Lydia have experienced what Garcia calls “developmental trauma.” 

“Let’s say a child was born to a substance-abusing parent, so they experienced inconsistent caregiving. And then maybe when they were 18 months old, they were left with an unsafe adult and sexually abused. And then they were taken away from their parents at the age of 3 and placed in a foster home — maybe placed in five foster homes,” Garcia said. “That’s developmental trauma. That’s a kid who hasn’t experienced safety, and a lot of kids in this building have stories like that.”

Because of those experiences, Garcia said, Lydia operates with strict routines and around-the-clock supervision. Children leave the building in small, carefully monitored groups, and their “privileges” inside vary depending on their behavior and progress in therapeutic treatment.

She also stressed that most children at Lydia are not originally from Evanston and ideally live in the facility for less than a year. As such, there is a natural “tension” between forging meaningful relationships with neighbors and preparing students for their eventual departure.

Ultimately, Garcia said the goal is not to exclude neighbors and that the center strives “to keep as open a door” as possible. Still, she pushed back on the sentiments expressed by some neighbors at the council meeting and emphasized foster kids at Lydia need long-term support.

“The thing that our kids need the most is relationships with people who are committed to them,” Garcia said. “Our kids have been rejected and abandoned and mistreated by a lot of adults, and they really need more safe, reliable adults in their lives.”

Garcia said she will continue consulting community members on how they can support Lydia’s residents and touted plans to create a new running club with the facility’s next door neighbor.

As with all of Lydia’s activities, though, safety remains paramount, she said. 

“Everything that we do, whether it’s a big barbecue or a carnival or taking the kids to the beach, we have to plan out every detail of it to make sure that it’s safe,” Garcia said. “And that’s what we’re paid to do, that’s what we’re funded for — to have a safe space for our children.”

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