People struggling with housing insecurity and homelessness must also, in many cases, contend with deteriorating physical, mental and behavioral health. The Grainger College of Engineering, with colleagues at Carle Health and Champaign County Health Care Consumers (CCHCC), has completed work on Hope Village, a community development in Urbana, Illinois, providing permanent supportive housing to those who struggle with chronic homelessness and medical fragility. It is a centerpiece of translational research in engineering and beyond, in which 24 one-bedroom houses were intentionally designed to promote healing and recovery for survivors of homelessness.

“As a land grant university, we are committed to not only advancing state-of the-art research but also benefitting our community and state,” said Rashid Bashir, dean of Grainger Engineering. “Hope Village is a much-needed resource in our community for the medically fragile homeless population, and Grainger Engineering is proud to partner on this impactful initiative which exemplifies that housing is also healthcare.”

“Hope Village is a much-needed resource in our community for the medically fragile homeless population, and Grainger Engineering is proud to partner on this impactful initiative which exemplifies that housing is also healthcare.” — Rashid Bashir, dean of Grainger Engineering

Hope Village is part of the Champaign County Continuum of Service Providers to the Homeless administered by the Champaign County Regional Planning Commission. Residents apply to join the community, and rent is covered by a housing voucher. The community is near Bradley Avenue in Urbana, where residents will have easy access to a Carle Mobile Health Clinic and a mobile grocer bus that already serves the area. Residents will not just be provided with a place to stay, but they will also be integrated into the larger community.

Completion of construction was marked with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on October 20, 2026, attended by Bashir, Karen Davis (Illinois Housing Development Authority), Kevin Place (Director of Electric Training for Ameren Illinois), Claudia Lennhoff (Executive Director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers), Drew Martin (Executive Director of Hope Village), Marty Smith (Director of Real Estate at Carle Health), James Leonard (President and CEO of Carle Health) and Paul Faraci (Illinois State Senator). The first residents will be welcomed in November.

“Just as there is so much more to housing than shelter, there is so much more to health care than physician services,” said civil and environmental engineering professor Ashlynn Stillwell, who led the translational research that went into Hope Village. “Hope Village is engineered to care for the health of its residents in a holistic manner, and it translates the university’s excellent fundamental research into practice with real benefits for real people.”

Photo Credit: Heather Coit / The Grainger College of Engineering

The initiative began when CCHCC joined with Carle Health to establish residences specifically for people who struggle with chronic homelessness, typically defined as one year or more of housing insecurity. The initiative recognizes that housing itself is a medical intervention for people who face medical fragility, dealing with the physical, mental and behavioral complications that co-occur with housing insecurity.

Grainger Engineering was tapped to ensure that the community is designed, built and operated in a manner that directly helps its residents feel safe and heal. Stillwell’s team engineered solutions by employing trauma-informed design principles accounting for the experiences of people who have been through episodes of housing insecurity. This lens allowed researchers to design everything from building materials to lighting to storage space.

“As an example, we specifically avoided building with cinder block or concrete masonry units,” Stillwell said. “They’re rigid, durable materials found in many functional contexts, but, for many people, they carry associations with incarceration or institutionalization. We introduced lots of natural lighting with large windows, but we placed them high up on the walls to give a sense of safety and protection. We made sure that the homes are fully accessible, so residents don’t have to move because of mobility issues as they age. A lot of people who have coped with chronic homelessness keep their belongings in shopping carts, so we included storage specifically for carts.”

Each house also contains smart home technologies that allow support staff to understand how residents are stabilizing in their houses and to non-intrusively identify when additional support is needed. Collected data is secure and only used to inform staff support systems already in place.

“It’s important to keep in mind that not all people dealing with chronic homelessness fit the stereotypes that are so prevalent,” Stillwell said. “Many are people who were pushed over the line by just one major expense or medical event. While many take advantage of public shelters, there are many who reside in vehicles or rotate between short-term stints with family and friends. The application process makes sure that Hope Village residents are ready to make the transition to a permanent residence in a community and are likely to succeed in that environment.”

Grainger Engineering and the whole University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will continue to play a role in administering Hope Village for the foreseeable future, so researchers will continue to perform translational work.

“We’re taking a longer-term view of this effort,” Stillwell said. “It’s not just building homes and walking away. It’s building homes, building community and building a system of housing plus services that supports people and enables thriving through different translational research aspects.”

“It’s not just building homes and walking away. It’s building homes, building community and building a system of housing plus services that supports people and enables thriving through different translational research aspects.” — Ashlynn Stillwell, civil and environmental engineering professor

Other Illinois contributors include associate professor Christopher Larrison (Social Work), clinical associate professor Joe Bradley (Bioengineering), research assistant professor Harshal Mahajan (Applied Health Sciences), professor Dong Wang (School of Information Sciences), associate professor Na Wei (Civil and Environmental Engineering), Research Scientist Brandi Barnes (Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute) and assistant professor Yiwen Dong (Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering).

Hope Village was made possible with the generous support of the Grainger Foundation.