Connections For The Homeless Looks To Buy Margarita Inn
EVANSTON, IL — A local nonprofit is set to unveil plans to turn a downtown Evanston hotel into a permanent homeless shelter.
Connections for the Homeless intends to acquire the Margarita Inn, 1566 Oak Ave., where the Evanston-based organization has housed the unhoused since the early days of the coronavirus outbreak in Illinois.
Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, 4th Ward, said Margarita Inn has operated under a special use permit to operate as a "rooming house" under the zoning code since 1974. Connections representatives want to continue operating under that designation, which is attached to the property itself, not the owners.
Nieuwsma is hosting a community meeting 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Sunday at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, 1509 Ridge Ave., to discuss the proposal. Staff from Connections will be on hand to present the organization's proposal, he said.
Connections has applied with Evanston Zoning Administrator Melissa Klotz to make a "determination of use" as to whether their proposed future use of the building qualifies, for the purposes of zoning, as a "rooming house" or should be classified as a "homeless shelter," which would require it to go through a fresh public permitting process.
"So that's not a public process, which is one of the reasons I'm convening the community meeting on Sunday, understanding that this arrangement is not without controversy and there are impacts on the neighborhood," Nieuwsma told Patch. "I do want to make sure that we are involving the community in the discussion."
The 4th Ward councilmember said that regardless of what guidelines might end up written into the zoning approval, he hoped to have a voluntary "good neighbor agreement" between Connections and community stakeholders.
"It will engage in a process through which we come to an understanding as to what Connections' rights, responsibilities and obligations are with regards to their presence in the neighborhood, with the objective of preventing problems before they happen," he said. "But understanding that inevitably, if a problem does happen, that mechanisms are in place to get things corrected in a very timely manner."
The hotel was originally built in 1927 by Rev. David O'Leary and his sister, Ellen, as a boarding house for young women, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In January 2020, the city placed a lien on the hotel, which said its owner, a corporate entity controlled by Michael Pure, of Deerfield, owed nearly $478,000 in unpaid hotel and parking taxes. The unpaid taxes covered a period between 2017 and 2019, and the hotel began paying taxes again after it was discovered, city staff told the Evanston RoundTable at the time. The city released the lean in October 2020.
According to Nieuwsma, the hotel's ownership was able to work off the back taxes through housing people in need during the pandemic.
From March to December 2020, the city and Connections spent a combined $2.7 million on sheltering homeless people at Margarita Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Orrington Hotel and Lake Street Church, with the nonprofit covering more than $2 million of that cost, according to city staff.
Connections has continued to operate at Margarita Inn in 2021 and 2022. According to the hotel's website, it has no vacancies through June.
The Alliance to End Homelessness in Suburban Cook County and its partner agencies, including Connections, are developing a plan to reconfigure the homeless emergency shelter system. Federal American Rescue Plan funding can be used to buy or rehab homeless shelters, according to a December memo to the City Council from interim City Manager Kelley Gandurski.
City staff recommended continuing to assess Evanston's shelter needs and develop a plan to present to the council's Housing and Community Development Committee, Gandurski said.
The potential sale price of the property, or whether it is yet under contract, could not be immediately determined. Patch requested comment from Pure, its owner, and any information received will be added here.
Representatives of Connections for the Homeless declined to comment to Patch until after the community meeting.
Nieuwsma said city staff have confirmed they will not issue a final ruling on the property's zoning until after the meeting.
Related:
Hotels Shelter Homeless During Coronavirus Stay-At-Home Order
Community Groups Collaborate To House Homeless Amid Coronavirus
Housing Fund Used To Cover Cost Of Hotels For Homeless
This article originally appeared on the Evanston Patch
