CHATHAM — A wellness center specializing in mental health support and servicing the city’s most vulnerable communities is open and accepting new clients on the South Side.
With the snip of a bright orange ribbon, Trilogy Wellness Center, 8541 S. State St., opened Thursday. The facility will provide crisis services for people with emergent needs, therapy, job placement assistance and outreach services to meet neighbors where they are and direct them to the resources they might need, leaders said.
The grand celebration comes nearly two years after Trilogy, a nonprofit community behavioral healthcare organization, announced it would repurpose the former Mercy Medical building in Chatham into a wellness support center.
Construction on the 24,000-square-foot center was completed in phases, allowing the Trilogy team to offer peer-run drop-in services at the State Street building as early as 2023. Ald. William Hall (6th), whose ward includes the wellness center, opened his ward office in the same building in 2024.
Access to mental health care has often been “overlooked and underrepresented” in communities like Chatham, said Trilogy CEO Susan Doig.
Trilogy has provided services on the South Side for 15 years, but with the completion of the wellness center, the nonprofit is promising a “permanent investment” and commitment to the South Side for years to come, Doig said.
“We’re not only here to celebrate a grand opening but to reaffirm our commitment to a healthier tomorrow, one in which all people have access to behavioral health services no matter what ZIP code you live in,” Doig said.
Neighbors can visit the Chatham wellness center to access family, individual, adolescent and group therapy and connect with medical services. The drop-in center will provide a space to grab a meal, take a shower and connect with specialists, Doig said.
September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month and Recovery Month — two topics that are essential to the work Trilogy does every day, Doig said.
“We are providing life-saving services,” Doig said.
Keith Fields joined Trilogy as a client in 2019, he said. At the time, he had recently been released from prison after serving a 30-year sentence that began when he was 17.
When Fields started working with the nonprofit, he was “problematic” and “aggressive,” he said. But staff worked with him, listened to him and helped him find a way to express himself without anger, Fields said.
One day, a peer supporter told Fields that, “You can do whatever you choose to do, but remember, you have choices,” Fields said. It changed his life.
“Once I realized that I have a choice to get out of my way, to learn to work on myself and to learn the coping skills to learn what PTSD and mental illness is, that was the breakthrough,” Fields said. “They’ve given me the avenue for me to be me and to not feel ashamed that I do have these current events going on in my life.”
Trilogy’s staff came to meet Fields “rain, sleet or snow,” he said.
Six years later, Fields is now doing the same for others as a peer specialist on the client advisory council at Trilogy. He rides his bike from the West Side to the Chatham building each day to meet with people and spread love, he said.
“I’m very honored to be here in a mentally healthy state of mind,” Fields said. “That doesn’t mean that I’m healed. That means that I’m still working, and I’ll be working for the rest of my life on me to make sure that I can show everybody else that there’s no such thing as ‘You can’t.’
“If you’re willing to fight, and even if you can’t, Trilogy is going to stand by you. Eventually, you’re going to find that there’s a lot of love in you. I’m just so honored to be a part of it.”
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