West Side Homeless Shelter Rejected By City Board

JOLIET, IL — Joliet's zoning board of appeals, in a unanimous vote Thursday afternoon, rejected the MorningStar Mission's plan to convert Joliet's Quality Inn at 135 South Larkin Ave. into an emergency homeless shelter.

In order for the homeless shelter project to happen, MorningStar Mission needs a rezoning variance and a special use permit from the Joliet City Council. The zoning board's decision is only a recommendation. The City Council has the final say on the project.

Several area businesses as well as a number of Joliet residents submitted letters to city staff urging a denial of MorningStar Mission's homeless shelter proposal for the Quality Inn.

"MorningStar Mission Ministries, the contract purchaser, seeks to convert the current Quality Inn hotel into an emergency shelter, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing facility," city of Joliet documents show. "MorningStar Mission is poised to receive $4.3 million in funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) Grant Program to purchase the building and up to $1 million in funding to renovate the building."

The CARES Act funding is coming from the Will County Executive's Office of interim executive Denise Winfrey. In October, her staff issued a news release announcing "the county will allocate $6 million to local nonprofits agencies to assist with significant impacts resulting from the COVID-19 crisis."

(Joliet Patch article continues below this photo of Denise Winfrey and Gov. JB Pritzker.)

“Our nonprofit agencies have been affected by the COVID-19 crisis,” Winfrey said in the Oct. 7 news release. “They rely heavily on corporate and personal donations to provide critical services for some of the most vulnerable in our county. This crisis has reduced revenue streams across the board and I am happy the federal government is allocating this funding to keep these agencies operating.”

According to city of Joliet documents, MorningStar intends to use 20 rooms at up to four people per room for emergency shelter, another 10 to 15 rooms for transitional housing and 6 more rooms for permanent supportive housing for the mentally ill. Built in 1990, the Quality Inn currently has 67 hotel rooms, laundry facilities, a lobby and indoor pool. The property encompasses 1.6 acres.

MorningStar's management has notified Joliet that the following renovations are planned for the Quality Inn:

• Fill-in the existing swimming pool and convert this space into a dining room and meeting room.
• Creating a commercial kitchen within the hotel’s lobby and commons area.
• Reducing the overall number of rooms in order to enlarge rooms for permanent support housing units, more meeting rooms and offices.

MorningStar said it plans to have the Quality Inn under supervision 24 hours each day, seven days each week.

Joliet Patch broke the news in an exclusive story published Dec. 1.

Joliet's two longtime homeless shelters are both on the city's east side. Daybreak, which is in the 600 block of East Cass Street, is run by Catholic Charities. MorningStar Mission, in the 300 block of Washington Street at the corner of Union Street, operates an emergency shelter, transitional and permanent supportive housing for men, women and children.

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