Proudly Serving Suburban Cook County

Progress Center is the Center for Independent Living that serves Suburban Cook County.
We work to provide people with all types of disabilities the tools and resources to be independent in their own homes. Progress Center is one of 22 centers serving Illinois.

About Us

What is Progress Center for Independent Living?

Progress Center is a community-based, non-profit, non-residential service and advocacy organization, proudly operated for people with disabilities, by people with disabilities.

Independent Living…

… Is a way of life that includes values, attitudes and behaviors.

… Embraces a philosophy that the person, regardless of their disability, has the potential to exercise individual self-determination.

… Is having the right and the opportunity to pursue a course of action. And, it is having the freedom to fail -and to learn from one’s failures, just as nondisabled people do.

… Means that we demand the same choices and control in our every-day lives that non-disabled brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends take for granted. We want to grow up in our families, go to the neighborhood school, use the same bus as our neighbors, work in jobs that are in line with our education and abilities, start families of our own. Just as everybody else, we need to be in charge of our lives, think and speak for ourselves.

A. Ratzka

Progress Center embraces “Disability Culture”

This term is used by people with disabilities to describe not only our growing sense of a shared history of social oppression, but also our strategies for coping and thriving, our emerging art and humor, our sense of community, and an almost defiant celebration of our differences.

( C. Gill)

Service Area

Progress Center for Independent Living serves all of suburban Cook County in Illinois. This includes over 133 municipalities.

Hours of Operation

Monday to Friday, from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm Central Time.  Services after hours, by appointment only.

Check out this Video on You Tube to learn more about the history of Progress Center.  Progress Center — Past, Present and Future

Administration

Horacio Esparza

Executive Director
The Executive Director is at the helm of our office. He is in charge of everything that goes on, focusing particularly on administrative areas such as contract management, Center’s direction and philosophy, etc.

Progress Center
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