City officials break ground at site of new transitional housing in Lincoln Square

The site of a former Lincoln Square motel is now one step closer to becoming a haven for people with mental health and substance abuse issues.

City and state leaders gathered at a groundbreaking Monday at the former Diplomat Motel, 5230 N. Lincoln Ave., for what will soon become The Haven on Lincoln, a 40-unit "stabilization housing" project that will provide wrap-around services in an effort to combat homelessness.

Last year, the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate gave Mayor Brandon Johnson the go-ahead to acquire the motel for $2.9 million and turn it into supportive housing.

"I have no doubt that when this space is open, that The Haven on Lincoln will break the cycle of individuals cycling through jail and emergency departments and shelters," Johnson said Monday. "It’s going to improve life expectancy by providing them with the tools that they need to be successful and have productive lives."

The Haven on Lincoln will be the first of its kind and will duplicate the hotel-to-housing model that used hotels to improve health outcomes for unhoused people during the pandemic. Residents were placed in their own rooms.

In March 2020, four Chicago hotels owned by Oxford Capital Group agreed to rent rooms to isolate patients who tested positive for COVID-19 or had been exposed to someone who tested positive. Not only did the hotels help ease the strain on hospitals but they also helped single men with chronic health conditions make the transition to permanent housing, instead of cycling in and out of emergency rooms or jails.

The Haven on Lincoln will not only provide housing by giving residents their own room and bathroom — it will also provide health care and social services on site for people living with untreated physical and behavioral issues.

"There are people experiencing homelessness who may be eligible for a temporary shelter, but if you are sick or have a behavioral health issue and nobody knows how to support you, you cannot be in a shelter," said Olusimbo Ige, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

"There have been more than a thousand people who have been caught in this gap in our system. They have complex medical issues, they have complex behavioral health needs and have not found a home. Today we are telling the story of finding solutions to this complex problem."

Other services will include individual and group therapy opportunities, transportation support, and case management services. The shelter will have on-site case workers, recovery specialists, clinical therapists and health care providers.

Residents will be assessed for program eligibility prior to intake and are estimated to stay between three to six months.

Once slated for demolition, the Diplomat Motel had a troubled history before the Johnson administration got the go-ahead to acquire it last year.

In 2013, Kimberlynn Bolanos, then 21, killed her 5-month-old son Isaac in a bathroom of one of the motel's rooms. The mentally ill woman pleaded guilty in 2016 and was sentenced to 38 years in prison, On Monday, Bolanos, now 32, ended her push for a new trial.