Changing Lumen error log path

Following the instruction here: [Laravel Lumen change log file name] (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31099651/laravel-lumen-change-log-file-name)

I am still getting the following error on a server where I cannot write to /storage/logs

PHP Fatal error:  Uncaught exception 'UnexpectedValueException' with message 'The stream or file "/home/app/lumen-app/storage/logs/lumen.log" could not be opened: failed to open stream: Permission denied' in /home/app/lumen-app/vendor/monolog/monolog/src/Monolog/Handler/StreamHandler.php:97
Stack trace:
#0 /home/app/lumen-app/vendor/monolog/monolog/src/Monolog/Handler/AbstractProcessingHandler.php(37): Monolog\Handler\StreamHandler->write(Array)

I have placed the following code in bootstrap/app.php

$app->configureMonologUsing(function(Monolog\Logger $monolog) use($logPath){

$handler = (new \Monolog\Handler\StreamHandler($logPath))
    ->setFormatter(new \Monolog\Formatter\LineFormatter(null, null, true, true));

return $monolog->pushHandler($handler);
});

where $logPath = __DIR__.'/../../../logs/lumen-app.log'; for some reason its not picking this up.

For those who are wondering why the nasty $logPath, the project is deployed within a symlink structure called current (for versioning) and the "storage" area is in the path ~/logs/ which is 2 directory behind.

If someone can efficiently help write something cleaning that, would be appreciated too.

Second note: i am receiving this error while running a artisan commnd. Within artisan command scripts - there are a lot of things in app that goes missing that are not available if the program booted normal. Is there another way to log this properly?