Housing Forward receives $1 million in grant funding from Village of Oak Park.

On February 6, the Village of Oak Park Board voted to award Housing Forward funding totaling $1 million which will be used to update and improve the former Write Inn hotel, located at 211 N. Oak Park Avenue. Half of the funding will come from unspent American Rescue Plan Act funding, while the other half is from Community Development Block Grant returned funds. 

In November 2023, Housing Forward purchased the property after leasing it since September 2020. The funding for the purchase came from Cook County, in the form of a 30-year, no-interest loan provided through dollars allocated by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The building is home to Housing Forward’s Interim Housing and Medical Respite programs, both of which were established at the Write Inn during the height of the pandemic. 

Housing Forward is grateful to the Village of Oak Park for supporting our vision of converting the former hotel into a modernized facility for people transitioning from unsheltered homelessness to long-term housing stability. Housing Forward’s planned improvements are intended to restore the 100-year-old structure while preserving its original character. We are looking forward to sharing more details of our plan in the coming months. 

Interim Housing and Medical Respite provide individuals and families experiencing homelessness with short-term private accommodations combined with structured programming, including medical care through Medical Respite services, with the goal of securing permanent housing. More than 80 percent of participants in our Interim Housing program have transitioned out of homelessness and into permanent housing since 2020.  

Ending homelessness has been Housing Forward’s ambitious vision for more than 30 years. This is only achievable with partners and supporters like the Village of Oak Park, who join us in a unified support system that serves everyone experiencing homelessness in our community.  

You can find more information about our programs and more on how you can get involved here.