MHL 2022 Board
Monica E. Marton
Advocate Aurora Health
Joellen McCarthy
Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
John Neuberger
Quad (Retired)
Krishna Ramachandran
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois / Health Case Service Corporation
Pamela A. Sharar-Stoppel
Wintrust Financial Corporation
Jon D. Stolz
Christopher B. Burke Engineering, LLC
Steve Thomas
Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago
Ritu Vig
SP+
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Mark Angelini
Regional President
George Adams
Bank of America
Lindsey Artola
Sage Health Strategy
Phil Ashton
University of Illinois Chicago
Henry Crumpton
Mercy Housing Lakefront Resident
Phillip W. DeSalvo
KPMG LLP
Mary Fishman
Sisters of Mercy &
The Well Spirituality Center
Tifair Hamed
P33 Chicago
Desiré Hunter
Mercy Housing Lakefront Resident and UNYQUE LLC
Charles B. Lewis
Duane Morris LLP
Esther Macchione
Prestige Health
Teresa Maltby, RSM, D.MN
Sisters of Mercy
Meet Mr. Bronstein
Robert Bronstein, now 70, did his best to stay out of trouble growing up. Born and raised in Chicago, he grew up surrounded with the love and support of a single mother and older brother. Reflecting on his childhood, Mr. Bronstein recalls his love of playing baseball. “I often sat on the bench,” he offers, laughing. “But on one of the few occasions I got to play, I hit it over the fence and the coach went silent. He let me play a little more after that.” Decades later, under difficult circumstances, Mr. Bronstein went through a period without a home. He lived in a shelter for eight months before being referred to Mercy Housing Lakefront, where he found a home at Carlton Apartments. It was a challenging time he doesn’t like to talk much about. “There are many ups and downs in life. I am older so most of that is behind me, but if you are young, you have still got a lot ahead of you.” Mercy Housing Lakefront recently undertook a year-long rehabilitation to update and preserve the 68 homes at the Carlton, which was completed in August. Mr. Bronstein says he appreciates the warm, friendly atmosphere at Carlton Apartments, where he has lived for the past 23 years. The presence of an onsite case manager has helped to address his day-to-day needs, including getting help with accessing his Social Security benefits, and he particularly enjoys the new computer center. On the updates, Mr. Bronstein summed it up perfectly, “The apartment building is not an apartment building. It is a community.”
MERCY HOUSING LAKEFRONT
Mercy Housing Lakefront has more than 5,000 affordable homes across 46 properties in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. We provide over 7,000 residents with affordable housing and onsite Resident Services to help residents achieve better health, education, and economic security for their families.
MHL
The rehabilitation of the historic Carlton Apartments, originally built in the 1920s, preserved 68 permanent supportive homes in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood.
Highlights
The recently rehabbed Major Jenkins Apartments was honored nationally with the Affordable Housing Finance Readers’ Choice Award for Preservation and the Novogradac 2022 Residential Development that Best Exemplifies Community Impact Award.
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Partnered with the Weinberg/Newton Gallery on the Key Change exhibit, which showcased art underscoring the importance of home and community for the well-being of every person. Teen residents led art-making activities for the public at the gallery.
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Community Health Workers, who are part-time staff and also residents, helped 66 program participants address chronic health conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and
heart disease.
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Meet Ms. Price
As a Certified Nursing Assistant, Rosie Price has dedicated her life’s work to providing care for people who needed support to thrive in their community. “I’ve been fortunate to help hundreds and hundreds of people in my lifetime,” she reflected. “Whenever I could make someone else happy it made me so happy. It was hard work, but it was a joy.” Tragically, the joy Ms. Price experienced in her work did not always follow her home. While living in Mississippi, Ms. Price’s then-husband was very abusive toward her and threatened to take her life. “The things I went through in marriage, it was like a nightmare. I couldn’t believe another human being could treat another human being that bad…I had to get out.” In the early 1990s, with the help of her church community, she courageously escaped with her two youngest children, including a disabled son, traveling with them by bus to Kenosha, Wisconsin where her second-oldest son lived. Recalling this memory and the freedom she felt after arriving in Kenosha, Ms. Price related it to the famous quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “’Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last.’ And I’ve been blessed ever since.” Ms. Price described their new life in Kenosha as peaceful. She supported her family by working at a nursing home, where she assisted older adults with activities of daily life – a career she found very meaningful. When her disabled son reached adulthood, she was able to take him to work with her where he attended their adult daycare program. When her son developed a serious health condition, he was no longer able to attend the program, so she had to piece together home care for him. As his health worsened, Ms. Price retired early to care for her son full time. “I thank God for the 42 years. We had a great, great life together – we did everything together!” After her son’s passing, Ms. Price was no longer able to afford the home they shared together. “After he passed, I couldn’t afford it because I wasn’t working, I retired to take care of him until he died, and I didn’t have a job.” Thankfully, she learned about Saxony Manor, a Mercy Housing Lakefront community for older adults in Kenosha, where she’s enjoyed being a resident for nearly 10 years. “I love my neighbors, and I love my apartment. I am the happiest woman in the world! My little apartment is my mansion, a small mansion, but that’s my mansion,” Ms. Price said.