Gateway Foundation has understood and addressed the connection between criminal activity and substance abuse since it began providing services in 1968. Over the past 40 years, Gateway Foundation, Inc. has become one of the largest and most trusted providers of substance abuse and co-occurring treatment services in the United States. Gateway is a private, not-for-profit organization incorporated in the State of Illinois. Gateway specifically targets under-served populations in the areas we serve, including the incarcerated, both adult and adolescent.
On June 28, 1968, the name Gateway Houses Foundation was officially entered with the Cook County Recorder's Office. The name was changed to Gateway Foundation in 1983 to better reflect the expanded array of services offered. Today, Gateway is a recognized leader in the field, serving over 53,000 clients in five states in FY 2006 and FY2007 combined. Twenty-five percent (25%) of these clients were women and 60% were minorities. Today, Gateway has well over 900 employees and over $60 million in annual business volume.
Click on the year below to read more about Gateway's correctional treatment history during a specific timeframe.
Gateway began its reputation with the opening of Crieger Ellis Houses in Chicago in 1968, operating in a traditional therapeutic community treatment model. With a base of community and government support, a series of new residential treatment programs was implemented in Illinois during the 1970s. The first was the Lake Villa Treatment Center in Lake Villa, followed by the Springfield facility in 1972 and Kedzie House in 1974. These successful programs are still in operation. In addition, the Belleville Outpatient program opened in 1982, and the Caseyville residential center in southern Illinois opened in 1988.
In the 1980s, Gateway added programs for two new populations: For male inmates at the Cook County Jail in 1980 (the first of its kind) and for youth with the opening of the dedicated Lake Villa Adolescent program in 1984. Due to the success of the men's program at Cook County Jail, Gateway began providing services in the Women's Division of the Jail in 1986. The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) was so impressed with the service delivery for Cook County inmates that it requested that Gateway provide programming in the Illinois prison system. This led to the establishing of treatment services in 1988 within the IDOC system, with programs for women at Dwight, Logan, and Kankakee Correctional Centers and for men at Graham, Sheridan, Lincoln, Taylorville, and Jacksonville Correctional Centers.
In 1993, Gateway furthered its expansion in the community by building the 120 bed-Chicago Westside Residential Center, followed by the opening in 1994 of Gateway's Free and Clean outpatient program for parolees in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1995, a new outpatient program for Spanish-speaking clients was implemented on Chicago's Northwest Side. Planned expansion projects in Illinois will result in several new community programs starting during the coming Fiscal Years. Aside from acquiring the contract to manage Delaware's largest publicly-funded residential treatment center (80 beds) in Delaware City, Delaware, in 2004, however, the majority of the agency growth since the mid-90's occurred in the Corrections Division.
Gateway continued its expansion into corrections-based treatment through establishing programs in Arizona, Indiana and New Jersey. Although the Arizona and Indiana projects were de-funded after the first contract period due to political and budgetary considerations, Gateway continues to be the exclusive provider of in-prison substance abuse treatment services for the New Jersey Department of Corrections.
The Sheridan Correctional Center (Illinois Department of Corrections) was re-opened in 2004 as a National Model Correctional Therapeutic Community, and Gateway operated the fully-dedicated 1,100 bed facility from 2004 through 2006. Recidivism studies by Loyola University and the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) throughout that period evidenced our outstanding success in reducing recidivism for those served.
In the early 90's, Gateway began services in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, through the vision of then-Governor Ann Richards. As a result of her in-prison substance abuse treatment initiative, Gateway was selected to provide treatment services in the State of Texas in 1992. Between 1992 and 2007, Gateway grew to become the State's exclusive substance abuse treatment vendor in correctional facilities by 2003. Although no longer the exclusive provider, Gateway has recently expanded further in Texas, adding an additional two In-Prison Therapeutic Community (IPTC) programs (over 800 beds) within the past month. Gateway currently provides treatment programs for male and female inmates in 10 facilities throughout the Texas system, totaling over 4,500 beds. The TDCJ/Gateway program at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville was named ''2002 National Program of the Year'' by the National Commission on Correctional Healthcare, evidencing our ability to provide appropriate services for the special needs population as well.
Many of the clients Gateway serves in our therapeutic community treatment model programs are involved in the criminal justice system. For example, current contracts include funding from the United States District Courts to provide random urinalyses and a range of community-based treatment and education services for federal probationers and parolees in Illinois and Missouri. We also provide residential and outpatient substance abuse services for probationers and parolees in Dallas, TX and in most of our Illinois residential and outpatient programs.