For the last seven or so years, Jeannie Mullner has been taking a disability van from her nursing home on the far north side to the Anixter Center, a social-service facility in Lincoln Park. There she and a few hundred other disabled people–some mentally disabled, others physically injured or blind, like Mullner–spend their days in classes, workshops, and discussion groups, or going on outings.
On any given day at the main facility, a converted factory at 2032 N. Clybourn, vans constantly drop off or pick up clients. The staff’s social workers preach an invigorating ideology of self-help and enterprise. “We get out,” says Carlotta Rivera, an Anixter client. “We go shopping. We see movies or go out to eat or go to a baseball game. We have travel groups. We go to Springfield, Milwaukee, and the Wisconsin Dells.”
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The center also publishes a newsletter with updates on activities, news blurbs, and obituaries–nearly all written by Ron Cluck, who uses a wheelchair and communicates through a computerized voice box, the result of an accident more than 20 years ago. The center frequently brings in elected officials such as Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood and state senator Ricky Hendon for roundtable discussions with clients and staff.
Ryan broke the bad news in his state-of-the-state speech in February. The Illinois government, he said, was more than a billion dollars in the red. He proposed across-the-board cuts unless the legislators raised taxes–unlikely in an election year.
Frustrated, Anixter staff gathered about 15 clients in mid-March and took them to the Thompson Center to testify at a legislative budget hearing chaired by state representative Monique Davis. “There wasn’t enough room for all the speakers who came to testify,” says Knowles. “They booked a room for 200 people, and about 700 or so showed up. They completely underestimated the turnout.”
It was, says Mullner, a dramatic moment as Cluck typed out his message, which came through his computer voice box. But it may have been lost in the tumult of the day.
Anixter’s staff and clients hope that eventually those four leaders will disappear into the back rooms of the statehouse and emerge with a tax hike that keeps programs like Anixter’s going. In the meantime, the staff and clients say they’ll keep up the pressure.
