States struggle to fill need for more veterans homes

GEORGETOWN, Ohio -- A veterans' home being built in the hills of southwest Ohio will house 168 people once it opens this summer and already has a waiting list of more than 100.

The Southern Ohio Veterans Home is only the second such home in more than a century to be built to accommodate Ohio's 1.2 million veterans, a number that is growing.

Across the country, states have found themselves planning homes to serve millions of aging veterans of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam.

"Our World War II veterans are aging and falling ill at an alarming rate. The demand for long-term care is soaring," said Ken Fulmer, president of the Armed Forces Veterans Homes Foundation.

For nearly nine years, 61-year-old Dave Popma has lived at the 700-resident Grand Rapids Home for Veterans in Michigan. An Air Force veteran during Vietnam, Popma came to the home after a reaction related to his diabetes forced doctors to amputate his foot. He gets around in a wheelchair.

"This has been a godsend for me," he said. "You're with your fellow comrades. You can relate to each other. It kind of takes your mind off of your handicap. It takes your mind off your troubles."

26.5 million veterans

The United States has 26.5 million veterans, 10 million of whom are age 65 and older. Frank Salvas, chief of the state home construction grant program for the Veterans Administration, said that 65-and-over group is expected to quadruple by 2010.

The first veterans' homes were built following the Civil War; 116 of them are recognized by the VA today, up from 33 in 1991.

Construction is under way on 10 new homes or additions in Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, with plans for 18 more.

'Ending up on the street'

"The fact that they're building veterans' homes shows that the need is growing," said Bruce Parry, secretary of Veterans for Unification, a Chicago-based advocacy group that works to improve health-care benefits for veterans. "A lot of people are ending up on the street."

The wait can be up to a year to get into the 114-year-old Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky.

"There is such a need," spokesman Gary Chetwood said. "It breaks my heart to tell people there's a waiting list."

To be approved for a veterans' home, states must donate the land and 35 percent of the construction costs. In return, the federal government pays the remaining construction costs and provides $53 a day for the care of each resident.

The state of Washington opened its third veterans' home last year and is replacing an aging portion of a home built in the 1970s.

As with other states, the number of veterans in Washington state is growing, with 649,000 on record, up about 7,000 from 10 years ago.

West Virginia plans to break ground on a $24 million veterans' home in the spring. The state, in which veterans comprise 10 percent of the population, currently has only a domicilary where veterans can stay for a short time.

Tennessee has two homes, in Murfreesboro and Humboldt.

For the past six years, the United Veterans of East Tennessee and its commander, Gerald Clark, have been lobbying for a home in Knox County, eastern Tennessee. Clark hopes that will happen after a new administration takes office this month.

"We're isolated here from our VA hospitals," said Clark, a 77-year-old World War II vet who lost his right leg following the Battle of the Bulge. "We here would be able to fill it so quickly. We'd have a long waiting list."

About 280,000 of Ohio's veterans live within a 50-mile radius of the Southern Ohio Veterans Home, which is being built on a 35-acre lot surrounded by woods.

Fox, an Army infantry radioman who served in Vietnam from 1965 to 1966, said the beds are already spoken for, even though the home is not complete.

"We get calls every day," said Fox, Brown County's veterans services officer.

To be considered for admission, applicants must be honorably discharged military veterans, have lived in Ohio for at least five years and have disabilities that prevent them from being employed.

Veterans "want to go where there are other veterans. I think it's camaraderie," Fox said. "As a general rule, a veteran goes to a nursing home and he may be the only veteran there. He has to go around talking to little old ladies and playing bingo and things like that, and it has nothing to do with being in the military."

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On the Net:

Armed Forces Veterans Homes Foundation: http://www.vethomesfoundation.org