Middletown opens 32-room permanent housing facility for homeless vets

Dignitaries, community stakeholders and other officials gathered Tuesday morning for a ribbon cutting for the Columbus House’s Shepherd Home at 112 Bow Lane, Middletown. The facility, on the Connecticut Valley Hospital campus and formerly owned by the state of Connecticut, will house 32 veterans, who are homeless or at risk of being so, placing them in permanent housing with supportive services. less Dignitaries, community stakeholders and other officials gathered Tuesday morning for a ribbon cutting for the Columbus House’s Shepherd Home at 112 Bow Lane, Middletown. The facility, on the Connecticut ... more Photo: Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media Photo: Cassandra Day / Hearst Connecticut Media Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Middletown opens 32-room permanent housing facility for homeless vets 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

MIDDLETOWN — The stately, 30,000-square-foot masonry colonial revival Shepherd Home on the campus of Connecticut Valley Hospital enjoyed its grand opening Tuesday, under brilliant blue skies.

The circa 1925 facility, at 112 Bow Lane, now owned by Columbus House of New Haven, was meticulously restored and renovated to its original glory over a period of six years as part of a $8.5 million project.

The building will house 32 veterans who are homeless, or at risk of being so, placing them in permanent housing with supportive services. Inside are studio and one-bedroom apartments, as well as common areas and a new community room. Sixteen formerly homeless vets already call the site home and full occupancy is expected by month’s end.

The ceremony was an especially poignant one for Columbus House CEO Alison Cunningham, whose father, a WWII veteran who died in 1997, was a prisoner of war in Germany.

“It’s not an easy thing to talk about, and my dad didn’t talk about it very much — if at all,” she said. “But I know how much pain it caused him. I could see it in his eyes, I could feel it in the tears that he shed instead of talking about it.

“I know how proud he would be,” Cunningham told those gathered on the lawn for the ceremony, her voice catching with emotion.

The facility, which originally housed nursing students, has a long history. It was named for Annie Shepherd, the third superintendent in charge of the home.

In 1989, Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp. opened a 70-bed transitional housing program for the city’s homeless there. It ran through 2014.

Once officials learned of its impending closure in 2013, a task force was convened to find a solution, said state Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown.

“We worked with an alphabet soup of state agencies,” he said, marveling at support the project enjoyed.

“We decided veterans’ homelessness was a stain on our community and our values and that we were all in this together. There were so many people who had a hand in it. That is the genius of this state, this city, this community. We all stood up, worked together to turn what could have been a very sad incident into a moment of pride,” Lesser said.

The city commissioned the Coalition on Housing and Homelessness to identify possibilities for the building’s use. A committee was formed in 2015, led by Middletown general counsel Brig Smith.

In April 2016, Columbus House and Northeast Collaborative Architects, Enterprise Builders, DiMarco Management, St. Vincent De Paul Middletown and Brad Schide were given approval for the project.

Work included repointing masonry, scraping and de-leading original wood windows, repairing the large columns and portico along Eastern Drive with its pilasters, entablature, side lights and dentil work at the cornice; restoring side porches with new columns, quarry tiles and hardware; and creating a new entrance with a decorative portico and handicap access, according to Columbus House.

The original layout of the hallways and common areas were kept, along with original, ornate door entrances.

If not for this restoration, officials said, the building could have been lost to neglect and deterioration, a fate that befell the former Connecticut Valley Hospital Old Woodward Hall patient residences next door.

“The masonry and the architecture of that hall was amazing,” Giuliano said.

In 2011-12, more than 800 veterans were homeless in Connecticut, “an extraordinary number,” Cunningham said. Today, they number fewer than 200. “That is a remarkable, remarkable achievement for this state.”

“It is so wonderful to be here in the sunshine that is gracing this wonderful home here,” said state Department of Veterans Affairs Commissioner Thomas J. Saadi. “It is truly a noble mission.

“Although we must always remember and thank our veterans and our service members, that is simply not enough: as a society, our words must be matched with actions. And that is exactly what Columbus House and Shepherd Home have done here,” Saadi said.

Common Councilman Sebastian N. Giuliano, who is on the project’s five-member citizens advisory committee, said: “This is a continuation of the 10-year project to end homelessness. That project — the first concept we had was housing first. If you can get these people housed, you solve three-quarters of the problem.”

“They’ve got the security, and, a lot of time, if they need services, it’s easier to bring the services to where they are than have them chase around for them,” he said.

There will be a staff member from St. Vincent De Paul Middletown on site, according to former Executive Director Ron Krom, “providing support services: everything from helping people get entitlements if they’re eligible, helping people to settle in, making sure they have everything they need in their apartments, connecting them to medical/mental health/addiction services if need be.”

This model is very similar to Liberty Commons on Main Street, which serves 40 residents.

“It’s incredible. There’s such a shortage of housing, especially affordable housing, for people living on the edge, on the margin. To be able to provide both the subsidies so they can move in, support services so they can be successful, it really is part of the whole picture to eliminate homelessness,” Krom said.

A metal plaque is installed next to the fire hydrant at the east side of the building in honor of the late South Fire Deputy Chief Fire Marshal Steven Krol, who died Feb. 13.

Officials are working with Middletown Area Transit to have a bus stop located near the facility.

For information, visit columbushouse.org.