The $9.16 million project will renovate the World War II-era main residential buildings that currently house 394 homeless and needy veterans. U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki has set aside 65 percent of the project cost to be paid for by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Connecticut now has 180 days to complete additional requirements such as architectural drawings and other technical matters. The final grant award is expected by April.
"This is tremendously exciting news and will continue the much-needed upgrades we are making to the Veterans Home campus," Gov. M. Jodi Rell said in a statement on Monday. "We owe so much to these veterans. This project will modernize the heating and ventilation system and make important energy efficiency improvements to the living quarters while taking advantage of the stimulus to keep state expenses to a minimum. Most importantly, our partnership with the federal VA is making a real difference in the life of our veterans."
The state Department of Veterans' Affairs originally applied to the VA for a grant to renovate the residential buildings in 2006. Connecticut's project is at the top of the VA's national priority list of 49 projects eligible for new funding through the stimulus, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The VA is making $150 million in grant funding available before Oct. 1 for state veterans home construction and renovation projects across the nation.
The residential buildings were completed in 1940. The DVA's renovation plans call for making the brick, two-story buildings handicapped accessible, upgrading fire sprinkler systems, modernizing common bathroom areas, replacing leaky roofs and gutters and upgrading to energy-efficient HVAC systems, including completing the installation of centralized air conditioning in sleeping areas.
A joint working group that includes DVA Commissioner Linda Spoonster Schwartz and Public Works Commissioner Raeanne Curtis is completing the necessary final grant materials for submission to the VA. DVA Deputy Commissioner John Wiltse said work will begin next spring.
"This is a conditional approval," Wiltse said. "We have to submit our final plans to Washington by the end of this year. We hope to receive the final award early in 2010."
Wiltse said this is the third major joint federal-state project at the Veterans Home campus since 2004. In October 2008, the $34 million, 125-bed Sgt. John L. Levitow Veterans Health Center opened to serve medically fragile veterans requiring long-term care and therapy services. A $4.6 million water distribution system was also installed in 2008 to supply reliable domestic and fire protection water to all residential buildings on campus.
The grant will target key infrastructure improvements in the residential area,Wiltse said.
Under Rell, the state and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have jointly invested $42 million in federal and state funding in the State Veterans' Home - the most new funding for improvements at the facility in over six decades.
No major infrastructure upgrades or renovations have been made to the residential buildings complex - which includes eight residential wings and the main dining room - since 1940. In the past three years the Connecticut DVA has used both state and donated funds to install new fire safety doors throughout the buildings, install air conditioning in four of the eight wings and upgrade an internal medical clinic that provides daily medical services to the nearly 400 homeless residents. One of the wing interiors was renovated in the early 1990s to accommodate 25 women veterans.
"We must continue to keep the faith with those who have served," said Schwartz. "Thousands of veterans have considered these buildings their home over the year. It's past time to bring them up to modern building codes and conveniences."
The governor said Connecticut was the first in the nation to commit to providing a home to veterans who needed it - a commitment that dates to the middle of the Civil War.
"Through the years, veterans have answered the call of duty," she said. "Now we have a duty to provide a safe, comfortable and dignified home for them."