Bill targets zoning laws that block homes for adults with disabilities
[April 01, 2026]
By Rebecka Pieder and Medill Illinois News Bureau
SPRINGFIELD — Organizations seeking to create community living
arrangements for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities
say local zoning laws in Illinois are “discriminatory” and are pushing
for legislation to protect the federal rights of those residents.
Community integrated living arrangements, or CILAs, are state-regulated
residential settings where adults with intellectual and developmental
disabilities can live together in small group homes with on-site staff
support. The homes offer an alternative for aging parents who can no
longer care for adult children with disabilities, while providing
residents with the opportunity to move out of their childhood homes in a
way that is supportive of their needs.
“They’re able to be integrated into a community setting. They make
friends and get to know people who don’t have disabilities,” said Mark
McHugh, president and CEO of Envision Unlimited, a CILA provider. “In
other words, they have as much…self-direction in their lives as you and
I do, and that’s the whole point.”
House Bill 1843 would bar municipalities from using zoning mandates to
block CILAs and would explicitly state that local zoning boards can’t
circumvent the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act
or other applicable state laws. It passed the House last spring and is
currently awaiting assignment to a Senate committee.
Rep. Suzanne Ness, D-Crystal Lake, sponsored the bill after hearing from
an agency that had funding and a house ready to open a CILA, but was
blocked by local zoning, despite a long wait list.
In Illinois, local zoning requirements can limit where CILAs are
established. Some areas are reserved for single-family homes, some
restrict homes to four residents or fewer, and others impose distance
requirements, meaning there cannot be more than one CILA within a
certain distance, sometimes 800 feet. These rules, and their
inconsistencies, can present challenges for companies seeking to
establish CILAs.
Ness said the bill is about normalizing housing for people with
disabilities. Zoning rules most often target the type of provider,
rather than specifically focusing on who lives in the home. So if a
group of adults wants to live in a home, she argued, the fact that it’s
owned by a care agency rather than an individual shouldn’t make it any
different in the eyes of a zoning board.
Local control concerns
The bill passed the house 77-35. House Minority Leader Tony McCombie,
R-Savanna, voted against the bill, she said, “because it would further
erode local control,” according to a spokesperson.
Another voice of opposition comes from the Illinois Municipal League.
While the IML declined to comment on HB1843 beyond their stated
opposition to the bill, representatives have expressed concerns about
state-level legislation encroaching on local authority.
The IML released a statement in response to Gov. JB Pritzker’s State of
the State Address, in which he outlined a statewide zoning law as part
of his BUILD plan. In their statement, Brad Cole, IML’s CEO, said,
“Zoning and land use decisions are best made locally by the leaders
elected in those communities.”
Creating procedural consistency
A proponent of the bill, Envision Unlimited, operates nearly 100 CILAs
across Illinois, primarily in the Chicagoland area. As the organization
has sought to expand statewide, local zoning rules and special use
permits have slowed the process, leaving some people waiting over a year
for a placement.
McHugh said municipalities routinely create barriers for CILAs that no
other homeowner or renter would face.
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Clear skies above an Envision Unlimited community integrated living
arrangement, a group home for adults with disabilities, in the
Chicago area. (Medill Illinois News Bureau, Photo by Rebecka Pieder)
“I guarantee you that none of us who have ever purchased a home or
rented an apartment anywhere had to stand before a village board and get
a special use permit,” he said. “That should not be required by people
with intellectual and developmental disabilities. That’s discriminatory
in my view.”
McHugh described meetings with municipalities that requested information
on staff and residents that Envision Unlimited could not legally
provide.
“This is a highly regulated industry,” he said, “Rightly so. But the
people who are experts at this are at the state level, and that
regulation should apply equally to people across the state.”
Through the legislation, sponsors of the bill seek to create procedural
consistency across the state for CILA providers.
“Really what this legislation does,it brings zoning standards across the
state to federal levels,” Ness said.
Envision Unlimited and other CILA providers have brought legal action
against municipalities who denied them from setting up CILAs in their
communities, or who have required them to apply for special permits, on
the basis that it violates federal law under the Fair Housing Act and
the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“There needs to be the same opportunity,” said Dr. Shana Erenberg,
co-founder and CEO of Libenu, another CILA provider. For Erenberg, that
means treating residents like any other adult.
“They don’t want to live at home. They’re adults, tell me an adult that
wants to live with their parents,” Erenberg said. “The idea is that they
should be able to spend the rest of their lives in these homes. Just
like anybody else.”
The bill was amended in the House to clarify that the state-level
legislation applies specifically to adults with disabilities living
together, rather than multiperson housing arrangements such as student
housing. Sponsor Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, is confident it will
pass the Senate.
“The benefits so outweigh the friction and the barriers that are being
put up,” Ellman said.
Beyond Ellman, the Senate bill has eight co-sponsors so far, two of whom
are Republicans: Deputy Republican Leader Sen. Sue Rezin and Caucus Whip
Sen. Jil Tracy.
While she emphasized that local control is a priority, Tracy has a
personal connection to this bill.
“I personally have a developmentally disabled brother, and he’s in Anna,
Illinois, which is my hometown,” Tracy said. “But I live in Quincy, and
I would love to have (him) closer to me.”
“So I signed on to the bill along with Sue Rezin to vet the issue and
hopefully gain some steam,” Tracy said. “So that people and
municipalities will not be afraid of having group homes within their
village or city, because there is a need out there and we have to try to
find a solution to this.”
Rebecka Pieder is a graduate student in journalism
with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media
and Integrated Marketing Communications, and is a fellow in its
Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News
Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state
government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is
funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation. |
