In January of last year Alisa Hauser had just started working as a social rehabilitation counselor at the Lockport Center for Behavioral Health when she saw a picture of celebrity photographer Marc Hauser in a magazine. “He looked a lot like my father, who had passed away,” she says. Curious, she called him. “We talked a little bit and found out that he and my father were cousins.”
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A former reporter for a newspaper in the Fox River valley, Alisa had been thinking of writing a book about the Lockport Center’s unique approach to mental illness: clients are strongly encouraged to interact socially in the town, and most hold jobs outside the facility. A social center–with a juice bar, big-screen TV, and pool table–is housed in a former movie theater, and clients have access to a nearby stable that caters to people with disabilities.
“A couple of times we had problems because their attention span isn’t very good. In the middle of a shoot, one guy dropped what he was doing and said, ‘I’m out of here. I don’t want to be in the book.’ Another day a guy came up to me and said, ‘I am a giant bug.’” Once a female assistant received so much unwanted attention she didn’t come back the next day. “These people have heavy-duty adrenaline,” says Marc.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Alisa Hauser, marc Hauser hoto by Britt Fohrman; “Harold Hyde” photo by Marc Hauser.
