For 50 years, Treatment Alternatives for Stronger Communities has helped West Siders navigate behavioral health and substance use challenges in the legal system.
Earlier this summer, TASC held its anniversary celebration at its Chicago office, announced a new overdose prevention campaign on the South Side and honored the decades of work they’ve done in providing wraparound services and evidence-based programming for people statewide.
That work extends to Chicago’s West Side, where TASC has served residents since its inception in 1976. It expanded citywide services to the rest of the state in 1981, including specialized case management that helps interrupt cycles of instability, sends reminders for court dates and hand offs participants to recovery services.
Citywide, TASC’s substance use treatment completion rate is 66%, compared to the state average of 49%. In Austin, TASC estimates that it had a 71% treatment completion rate in the 2026 fiscal year.
Today, TASC receives federal funding, plus state and philanthropic money to help bridge the gap between the U.S. court system and community-based treatment. Compared to the average $30,000-to-$45,000 taxpayers spend for one year of prison time for a person, TASC’s substance-use treatment costs an average $4,200 per participant.
Rebecca Levin, TASC VP of policy, said in a video : “There are so many people that are involved in the criminal legal system, not because of criminal issues but because of health issues. If overnight we were able to get this population access to health insurance, and therefore access to healthcare, it could be this game changer.”
History of TASC
According to TASC President and CEO Joel Johnson, the Nixon administration developed treatment alternatives to street crime in the early 1970s. In a video celebrating TASC’s anniversary, Johnson said Nixon’s initiative launched after veterans came back from the Vietnam War with substance use issues.
“We don’t fix people. We empower people,” Johnson said. “Our goal is ultimately that people become contributing members of society and are able to give back to their own communities in the way they received support from TASC.”
A few years after its inception, in the ‘80s, TASC started offering youth services in juvenile courts. By 1994, TASC helped with pre- and post- release case management, adding peer recovery services in 2001.
Only in 2013 did TASC help lead the charge to start offering Medicaid to people in Cook County jail.
Most of the federal funding TASC receives today is for Medicaid reimbursement. TASC’s largest funding stream comes from the Illinois Department of Human Services, which provides funding for substance use disorder treatment when Medicaid can’t be billed. The Illinois Department of Corrections and Department of Children and Family Services also provide funding support, respectively, for people after they’re released from prison and families struggling with substance use disorders.
In 2015, TASC helped play a role in the Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform — which aimed to decrease the number of people in state prisons and create policy solutions that reduce recidivism and make it easier for people who were incarcerated to re-enter the workforce.
Pam Rodriguez, former TASC president and CEO, was on the commission that developed the reform, lending her expertise to help reach the goal to cut the state’s prison population of over 45,000 by 25% by the year 2025. Last year, the state surpassed that goal, as the number of people in Illinois prisons fell to 30,389.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford created the West Side Heroin/Opioid Task Force in 2016 to address the drug crisis on Chicago’s West Side. The task force collaborates with TASC and helped the Chicago Department of Public Health create a similar task force on the South Side.
“TASC has helped thousands of people change the course of their lives,” Illinois Senate Assistant Majority Leader Mattie Hunter, convener of the Southside Heroin and Opioid Task Force, said in a statement. “Everyone deserves a second chance. TASC supports people in their most vulnerable moments interacting with police, courts, emergency rooms and shelters. For five decades, TASC has held to a redemptive, people-centered vision rooted in dignity, recovery and resilience.”
In 2021, Gov. JB Pritzker signed the SAFE-T Act. The Pretrial Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023, is a part of the SAFE-T Act and reforms the pretrial hearing process and detention requirements, allowing police to cite and release people instead of holding them in jail until they post bond. TASC is a member of the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, which helped implement the Pretrial Fairness Act.
“TASC acts as a trusted, non-judgmental intermediary so that people can succeed in alternatives to incarceration and supportive reentry services,” Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle said in a statement. “Our collaboration has reduced the burden on courts and jails and made our communities stronger.”