Building begins in Joliet on Stepping Stones family housing, recovery center

Stepping Stones on Friday celebrated the start of construction for what it said will be only the second licensed recovery center in Illinois that provides housing for mothers and their children.

The apartment building in Joliet is expected to be completed in December and will provide housing for seven mothers and their children as they receive treatment for substance abuse from Stepping Stones.

Speakers at the Friday event commented on the importance of the new housing at Stepping Stones, noting that most mothers avoid residential treatment because it means separation from their children.

“There are very few options,” Stepping Stones Executive Director Paul Lauridsen said. “There are people we have met who have gone as far as southern Illinois for a place where they could receive treatment and continue to be with their children.”

The only other licensed recovery center with housing for mothers and their children is in Charleston, Lauridsen said. A recovery center in Chicago that provided the housing closed in the past year.

Stepping Stones still is raising money to pay for the $3.7 million apartment building. It has a little more than $3 million now thanks to federal and state grants, federal funding made available through Will County, and donations from 14 businesses and individuals.

The fundraising effort began in 2019.

Amie Toste, a former Stepping Stones client who now works for the agency as a recovery support specialist, spoke of her own experience to emphasize how much having a place to stay with their children means to mothers when they need treatment.

Toste said her own children lived in a homeless shelter while she was getting residential treatment at Stepping Stones.

“I work with women today, and that is a huge issue,” she said. “It makes you feel so horrible inside that you have to step away from your children to get better. But, you know, if you’re not going to get better, you’re not going to be able to help your children.”

Passersby can see the construction fence set up on the site at 1620 Plainfield Road – a former Howard Johnson’s hotel and restaurant – where a section of the parking lot has been torn up this month.

The former hotel building is used as a residential treatment center for adults. The former restaurant, which has the Alpine roof characteristic of the old Howard Johnson’s chain, is used for office space.

The apartment building is being built in former parking space and is designed to be compatible with recent upgrades made at the adult residential treatment center.