A Downtown Oak Park Business Alliance board member is pressing village trustees to more than double the staff of Oak Park's homeless-response program before the 2027 budget closes.

Paul Beckwith wrote in a letter published Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the Wednesday Journal that 454 homeless individuals have reportedly contacted Oak Park police and fire departments over the past two years. The village's ECHO program (Engaging Communities for Healthy Outcomes) has just three staffers handling those cases.

"They are making a difference, but Oak Park can do much more!" Beckwith wrote, asking trustees to add four to five ECHO employees in the 2027 budget.

He specifically called for two of the new hires to work evenings and weekends to support police and fire crews.

Board divided on ECHO funding

Beckwith's letter lands in the middle of a budget debate that started in June. The village board voted June 16 to direct its Finance Committee to identify roughly $472,000 in the 2027 budget for an expanded alternative-response model, including ECHO growth, according to village board minutes.

Village staff had presented a plan to add five staffers to the three-person ECHO team at a projected cost of just over $600,000, the Wednesday Journal reported in June. But Assistant Village Manager Jonathan Burch recommended delaying the expansion until more data and a new dispatch system were in place.

The board split. Trustees Brian Straw and Cory Wesley and Village President Vicki Scaman supported moving forward with expansion in 2027. The other four trustees were not ready to commit.

Chief Financial Officer Kevin Bueso told the board in June that no funding source had been identified for the roughly $472,000 needed, citing rising costs and competing priorities.

What ECHO does

ECHO launched as a pilot funded by a one-time $1.1 million set-aside. The village has been working to move it into the annual budget. The Oak Park Police Department described the program in April as an effort to strengthen care coordination by rethinking how the village responds to residents in crisis.

Beckwith, who said he has volunteered with Housing Forward (formerly PADS) for more than 10 years, wrote that ECHO has worked alongside Housing Forward and Oak Park Township to coordinate responses to homelessness.