But for the owners of four stores who have for years made their living under the tracks, the renovation is not great news. Those four businesses will be forced to close, including Lakeview Foods, the oldest running business to operate at the Wilson station.

Michael Stempien, who inherited Lakeview Foods from his father, is taking the closing of his store — the loss of his livelihood and his family’s legacy — to heart.

The store had been operating for 25 years with a month-to-month lease from the CTA, Stempien said, when he was notified of the renovations in February.

The CTA said in an e-mail that it wanted to upgrade the Wilson station to beautify the neighborhood and better serve customers. The CTA worked with Ald. Helen Schiller (46th) to get $3 million in tax increment financing for the renovation.

Stempien said he pleaded with the CTA to keep his store, but to no avail; he was given 30 days’ notice to move his business. He won’t be able to open a new store due to losses he’s currently taking with his inventory, he said.

“I’m not going to have money to open a new store. We’ve taken a hit on all the inventory we have, because we’re selling it for less than what we bought it for,” said Stempien.

Stempien has begun selling his products at buy-one, get-one -free prices, and fears that he will have to throw away most of his unsold merchandise. And he has been trying to sell his equipment from the store on Craigslist.

“Hoping for the best and expecting the worst. There’s nothing we can do,” he said. “I just got dealt a bad hand. It sucks, but it’s legal.”

Other stores affected by the renovation, according to Stempien, are Popeye’s, The Wilson-Broadway Mall and Americana Submarine & Grill.

The Wilson-Broadway Mall, which also operated on a month-to-month lease, will relocate across the street from the Wilson station.

“We actually found a place across the street. We got lucky,” said My Linh Lee, who works at the Wilson-Broadway mall. Lee said her store also tried to protest the closure and were told they had to move out.

Lee pointed to the outcome of other stores and their sad departures. “It’s unfortunate for everybody else. They’ve been here for so long and they have to move out. Lakeview [Foods] has been there forever, since I was little,” said Lee.

Asif Poonja, owner of the Popeye’s restaurant at Wilson and Broadway, took out a $500,000 loan to renovate his restaurant; now, he says, it’s a wasted effort.

“All of my furniture will be gone. There’s not much I can say without [the CTA] getting mad. There’s no way we can get reimbursed,” said Poonja.

Stempien thought his relationship with the CTA was good enough to avoid closure. “I would think that 25 years of having a business relationship would’ve gotten me more than a 30 days’ notice,” said Stempien.

After the renovation, the stores will have to re-bid for their former locations.

“When the project is done in over a year, we’re not guaranteed this spot back,” Stempien said.

Somerset Place, a nursing home at 5009 N. Sheridan Road that housed mentally disabled and elderly residents, was stripped of its Medicare funding on Feb. 7 by the state of Illinois after inspections showed deficiencies within the facility.

Residents were given just 30 days to find housing alternatives in other nursing homes or with family members.

“It’s been home to people for a long time,” said Anthony Zipple, CEO of Thresholds and an advocate for mentally ill. “To get adjusted to the idea of living somewhere else, to build relationships that you need to help support and sustain you in that new place, is hard to do in 30 days.”

Patients’ transitions were aided by the state of Illinois’ Public Health Department and the Illinois Department of Human Services, said Melony Arnold, communications manager for the public health department.

“It would’ve been nice to have enough time for people to transition into traditional settings,” Zipple said. “It may be that circumstances were serious enough that they [the state of Illinois] just couldn’t do it [in time].”

The Illinois Public Health Department did inspections and surveys on Somerset and cited the facility for not meeting requirements pertaining to the well-being of residents.

“After numerous inspections we found and cited Somerset for very serious deficiencies,” said Arnold.

Somerset and other nursing homes in Illinois are not good places for mentally disabled patients, Zipple said.

“In Illinois we have a policy of putting people with mental illness into institutional care even when putting them in community settings would be better and less expensive,” said Zipple. “Giving people alternatives rather than these institutional settings is the right public policy.”

Shortly after the closing of Somerset, an agreement was made to lay out a schedule for state officials to offer nearly 4,500 mentally ill nursing home residents an alternative to nursing home care and be placed into smaller settings, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Zipple said it is hard to get out of nursing homes after a prolonged stay. “The longer you’re there, the harder it is to get out,” said Zipple.

Mark Hyerman, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said  Illinois wasted too much money funding places like Somerset. “The state [of Illinois] wastes a lot of money. They don’t enforce adequate law to ensure the best possible care,” said Hyerman.

Zipple applauded Illinois’ efforts to help residents find alternative housing. “They [the state of Illinois] wanted to make sure [residents] didn’t end up in situations that were dangerous for them,” said Zipple.

Arnold said public health officials educated residents on what alternatives they had before they moved.

“Our goal was to educate residents. Our biggest push was to make sure those residents had a choice in where they moved and we identified potential places where they could go,” said Arnold. “We wanted to make sure they did have a place to go.”