Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Long-delayed veterans center to be dedicated

EAST ST. LOUIS -- After eight years of delays and missed deadlines, the Joseph Center for homeless military veterans is finally scheduled to be dedicated during an 11 a.m. ceremony on Nov. 13, a spokesman for the group sponsoring the shelter has announced.

Spokesman Frank Hackmann said he hopes the first veterans will move into the 22-bed shelter at 5020 State St. some time by the latter half of November.

"But we can't commit to that until we get the letters of approval" from the agencies sponsoring the shelter, Hackmann said.

Peter Dougherty, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, in Washington, D.C., confirmed the shelter has announced the Nov. 13 dedication date.

"Sounds like they got it all set now," said Dougherty, whose agency is one of the shelter's chief money providers.

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.

Kurt Daesch, the executive director of the St. Clair County Veterans Assistance Commission, said the shelter will mean a great deal for veterans in both the county and the entire metro-east.

"They're going to get a chance to get themselves out of homeless situations," Daesch said.

Eagles Nest of St. Clair County, the center sponsor, has scheduled and retracted, during a period of eight years, 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.

The federal veterans agency 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.

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 counseling and training.

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.