A cornerstone ceremony will be held at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital June 29 for Bedford Green, a housing development for homeless veterans that will be the first in the country offering independent living options for homeless vets age 55 and older.
The ceremony will be near the Patriot Golf Course located at Edith N. Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital, 200 Springs Road in Bedford. It begins at 1 p.m. Monday, June 29.
“When they (Vietnam War veterans) returned home in the ’60s and ’70s, they were not greeted with the same level of support that exists today,” said Ken Link, chief of social work service for the Bedford VA. “It made them reticent to reach out for help due to earlier experiences that were not very positive.”
Link added it was this dynamic led to some vets of this era becoming chronically homeless.
One of the goals of the 70-unit building, which will be on four acres near the golf course on the Bedford VA’s campus, is to bring this group “back into the fold so they can see that there is a true effort on the part of state and local governments to support these vets in getting the resources and services necessary to integrate into the community and be successful in pursuing their goals whatever they may be,” said Link.
Bedford Green social workers will assist the senior vets in accessing the medical, psychological and vocational services available at the Bedford VA to address factors that may have contributed to their situation. Veterans who qualify to occupy the furnished, mostly one-bedroom apartments available by the spring of 2016 will pay rent based on a sliding scale up to one-third of the market value of the unit. No one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
Veterans can stay as long as they like provided they meet the requirements set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and VA Supportive Housing Program, which issues the housing subsidies.
Finding safe and secure homes for vets to live in close proximity creates an environment with unique benefits, said Laurel Holland, the grants and per diem liaison at the Bedford VA.
“Vets derive a huge amount of healing by being around their cohort; that’s their family,” said Holland. “When they have community living and still have independence, it’s the best of all worlds.”
To provide that sense of community, governmental agencies and private donors such as The Home Depot Foundation, which granted the project $500,000, joined forces to pay for the $21 million development. The partnerships are a direct of the 2011 Building Utilization Review and Repurposing (BURR) Initiative to end homelessness for vets of all ages.
The 2014 estimate for homeless vets nationwide was just under 50,000. During that same time period in Massachusetts, the number of homeless veterans was estimated at nearly 1,300.
The BURR initiative allows for “third-party providers to finance, design, develop, maintain, operate housing on unused land or buildings on VA property,” according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA retains ownership of the land, while community partners develop and operate the housing options.
In response to the initiative, the Bedford VA partnered with Peabody Properties, Windover Construction, the Affordable Housing Services Collaborative, Horsley Witten Group, The Architectural Team and New Ecology to develop and manage Bedford Green.
“Our goal is to allow people to age in place with grace,” said Betsy Collins, a senior project manager for Peabody Properties.