MAYWOOD, IL — MacNeal Hospital received a Housing Forward Ending Homelessness Impact Award this past weekend “for embracing the intersection between housing and health care, and disrupting the cycle of homelessness.”

MacNeal Hospital, located in Berwyn, Illinois and part of Loyola Medicine, has been providing quality health care in the near western suburbs and Chicago for nearly 100 years. In 2018, Charles Bareis, MD, chief medical officer at MacNeal, sought a way to address the housing needs of homeless patients, who often seek health care in the emergency department and then need somewhere to safely recuperate and live.

The result was a partnership between MacNeal and Housing Forward, a Maywood, Illinois social service organization committed to transitioning individuals and families from homelessness to housing stability. Together, the two organizations established the first medical respite program in suburban Cook County.

In August 2019, Sojourner House opened in nearby Oak Park, Illinois, providing three dedicated apartments exclusively for persons who are homeless and in need of “healing and recuperation post hospital discharge.” Sojourner House provides both MacNeal and Loyola Medicine patients with an innovative bridge to housing that is helping to end homelessness in the near western suburbs.

Dr. Bareis accepted the award during Housing Forward’s Have-a-Heart Gala, on Saturday, February 29, 2020, at Navy Pier.

About Loyola Medicine

Loyola Medicine, a member of Trinity Health, is a nationally ranked academic, quaternary care system based in Chicago's western suburbs. The three-hospital system includes Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC), Gottlieb Memorial HospitalMacNeal Hospital, as well as convenient locations offering primary care, specialty care and immediate care services from nearly 2,000 physicians throughout Cook, Will and DuPage counties. LUMC is a 547-licensed-bed hospital in Maywood that includes the William G. and Mary A. Ryan Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine, the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, the John L. Keeley, MD, Emergency Department, a Level 1 trauma center, Illinois's largest burn center, the Nancy W. Knowles Orthopaedic Institute, a certified comprehensive stroke centertransplant center and a children’s hospital. Having delivered compassionate care for over 50 years, Loyola also trains the next generation of caregivers through its academic affiliation with Loyola University Chicago’s Stritch School of Medicine and Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing.   

For more information, visit loyolamedicine.org. You can also follow Loyola Medicine on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or X (formerly known as Twitter).

About Trinity Health

Trinity Health is one of the largest not-for-profit, faith-based health care systems in the nation. It is a family of 127,000 colleagues and more than 38,300 physicians and clinicians caring for diverse communities across 26 states. Nationally recognized for care and experience, the Trinity Health system includes 93 hospitals, 107 continuing care locations, the second largest PACE program in the country, 142 urgent care locations and many other health and well-being services. In fiscal year 2024, the Livonia, Michigan-based health system invested $1.3 billion in its communities in the form of charity care and other community benefit programs. For more information, visit us at www.trinity-health.org, or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X (formerly known as Twitter).