Haymarket Center

Haymarket continues Monsignor Ignatius McDermott’s (Father Mac) mission of treating the ‘whole person’ and restoring stability to those in treatment and their families.

Haymarket goes beyond treatment of addiction – from detoxification, to recovery, to finding a home, learning a job skill and gaining employment. Haymarket Center’s goal is to provide its clients with opportunities enabling them to lead productive and creative lifestyles without drugs.

Founded in 1975 by the late Monsignor Ignatius McDermott and Dr. James West, McDermott Center dba Haymarket Center is the largest not-for-profit community-based adult detoxification, residential, and outpatient substance abuse treatment facility in Chicago. Haymarket Center has continued to grow into a comprehensive alcohol and other drug treatment organization, licensed by the state of Illinois, which receives funding from the private sector, as well as city, county, state and federal agencies. The treatment programs are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitative Facilities (CARF).

Msgr. McDermotts and Dr. West’s understanding of addiction as a disease provided the motivation for their call for treatment in lieu of criminalization. This fundamental perspective continues to guide Haymarket Center in pioneering innovative, high quality, community-based, social setting behavioral health programs that are gender responsive, culturally appropriate and population specific. Although Haymarket serves primarily homeless, indigent and ex-offenders from the south and west side communities of Chicago, it extends its services to the entirety of Illinois. Since its inception Haymarket Center has remained wholeheartedly devoted to identifying and designing new and progressive methods for furthering our founding mission: “to aid people with chemical dependency in their recovery by providing a continuum of optimal professional care that is responsive to the identified needs of the community.”

With more than 30 specialized programs supporting our mission, more than half are CARF accredited programs that utilize evidence based practices which harness significant research that prove their effectiveness and insure greater success for our clients. Along with this commitment, we have continually been faithful to our guiding principle of providing comprehensive substance abuse treatment and referrals to Chicago’s vastly ignored and underserved populations regardless of their ability to afford services. Our loyalty to these two fundamental principles has led Haymarket to develop programs in clinical treatment and supportive services to men, women and children, serving over 18,000 clients per year.