Monday, Sep. 14, 2009

Center for homeless veterans set to open after years of missed deadlines

EAST ST. LOUIS -- After eight years of financial struggles and missed deadlines, the Joseph Center, a 26-bed shelter and training center for homeless veterans, is set to hold its grand opening on Sept. 25.

An open house to showcase the facility at 5020 State St. is set to take place on Tuesday.

Visitors will be in for a treat because "the place is absolutely beautiful," said Dennis Johnson, the center's chief of culinary operations.

The facility, the only one of its kind in the Midwest, aims to provide a home to military veterans, who will also receive long-term life skills and job training, along with drug- and alcohol-abuse counseling.

"They get two years to get their act together," Johnson said.

Over the past six years, Eagles Nest has scheduled, and retracted, a series of opening dates for the shelter, which is being built with the help of $2 million in federal, state and local grants and loans.

At the time it was scheduled to open in early 2003, the Joseph Center -- named for board President Martha Watts' late husband -- was to provide a home for up to two years to clients who would receive life skills and job training, along with counseling for drug and alcohol problems.

The project's original start-up cost in 2001 was estimated at $500,000, and most of that money was to go toward the renovation of the old Army Reserve building where the shelter is located.

Eagles Nest, the nonprofit group that oversees the center, later revised the cost estimate to $1.5 million, causing a money shortage that brought the project to a standstill. More money shortages, as well as disputes with contractors, led to a construction schedule filled with starts and stops.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs helped launch the project with a $100,000 grant in 2001. That grant was augmented by a second grant of $200,000 from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, also in 2001.

Since 2001, Eagles Nest Inc. has received about $2 million in federal and state grants and loans for the Joseph Center in East St. Louis.

Other major funding sources include:

* $870,000 low-interest loan from the Illinois Housing Development Authority in Springfield.

* $250,000 in the form of construction bonds, a line of credit and a short-term loan from the Southwest Illinois Development Authority in Collinsville.

* $200,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

* $153,000 low-interest loan from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

* $59,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

* $3,500 grant from the St. Louis Rams Foundation.