Dickie O’Neil served his country and his town for many years, and Wednesday, Chelmsford gave back to him and his fellow veterans.
The Richard P. O’Neil Housing for Veterans on Manahan Street in Chelmsford was one of two new veterans’ housing developments that opened Wednesday morning thanks to the Chelmsford Housing Authority, its nonprofit affiliate CHOICE Inc. and several other community, state and federal partners.
O’Neil grew up in Chelmsford and served in the Air Force from 1957 to 1961 before returning to town. He was a Chelmsford firefighter for 27 years and worked for the CHA for another 28, first as a maintenance worker and then as supervisor of maintenance, before retiring in 2010.
“It’s such an honor to be in this new veterans’ home with my name on it,” said O’Neil, 75. “It’s not every day that a person gets a building named after them.”
CHA Executive Director David Hedison said the idea for creating local veterans’ housing came about five years ago during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when housing authority officials heard there was going to be a great need for permanent housing options for returning veterans.
“We have lost people in war, we have lost people who returned from war, and we made a decision that we wanted to provide our veterans with a safe, affordable place to call home and receive services,” he said.
Both Chelmsford and Westford met the idea with incredible community support, Hedison said.
The Chelmsford development, which features eight fully furnished studio apartments, cost $2.15 million.
The Westford Home for Veterans, on Carlisle Road and which features five family housing units cost $2.4 million. The funding for both projects included a mix of local, state and private dollars, with the vast majority coming from state sources.
Both will offer a variety of supportive services via the Veterans Northeast Outreach Center, according to CHOICE, Inc. Executive Director Connie Donahue-Comtois.
She said all the units have already been filled through a lottery, and the veterans will be moving in early next month.
“We’re going to help stabilize them, we’re going to help get them readjusted, back into a community where they live and hopefully this will be the start of some more projects to help us end the scourge that is veterans’ homelessness,” said state Secretary of Veterans’ Services Coleman Nee.
State Undersecretary for Housing and Community Development Aaron Gornstein said Gov. Deval Patrick released a plan in 2013 to address veteran homelessness with a goal creating 250 housing units for veterans over a three-year period. That goal was exceeded about a year and a half early, he said, with about 370 units of permanent affordable housing for veterans already created.
U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas said she was happy to see the community address the homelessness that too many veterans find themselves in “as a result of the wounds of war.”
Other speakers at the events included Chelmsford Town Manager Paul Cohen, Chelmsford Selectmen Chairwoman Pat Wojtas, Westford Town Manager Jodi Ross, state Sen. Eileen Donoghue, Tom Lyons of MassHousing, Ryan Dunn of Enterprise Bank, Roger Herzog of Community Economic Development Assistance Corp., Michael Rayder of TD Charitable Foundation and Mary Ellen Jutras of Federal Home Loan Bank