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| MDC part of Tomorrows home for soldiers of today Show DetailsHide Details |
| Jun 6th, 2008 |
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MDC, the Washington Soldiers Home & Colony in Orting, and Washington state Department of Veterans Affairs are renovating a 91 year old Barracks into 30 housing units for veterans.
MELISSA SANTOS
The News Tribune Published: May 24th, 2008 01:00 AM
Updated: May 24th, 2008 06:21 AM
The average resident at the Washington Soldiers Home & Colony in Orting isn't a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most hail from past eras' World War II, Korea and Vietnam. But the number of injured soldiers returning from today's wars has the 117-year-old facility making plans for how it can also serve a younger population of veterans. The 181-acre campus is looking to increase transitional housing for returning soldiers and to add treatment programs for veterans with traumatic brain injuries. The Soldiers Home in East Pierce County is the oldest of three veterans homes in Washington run by the state Department of Veterans Affairs. It offers its 182 residents three levels of nursing care on grounds that include century-old brick buildings, a fishing pond and well-maintained lawns. What it could use more of are resources such as occupational and speech therapy, said Donald Lachman, special projects coordinator for the state VA. For every fatality in this war we have 16 injured veterans, and the head injury is the signature injury of this war, Lachman said. We know these soldiers are coming because of the kind of injuries that are happening, and we're not ready for that.
NEW HOUSING
Part of the department's plan includes partnering with Pierce County's Metropolitan Development Council to renovate a 91-year-old barracks at the entrance to the grounds. The renovation would create 30 housing units for homeless veterans. The Garfield Barracks was condemned in 1978 and has since been used for storage. Half of the units in the renovated structure would become transitional housing; the other 15 would be permanent low-income units. Residents would have access to the other health care facilities at the Soldiers Home, which include a light-care nursing facility and a skilled-nursing home. We've really seen on the streets of Tacoma and Pierce County an increase of single and chronically homeless folks on the street, said Sandy Burgess, a development consultant with the nonprofit Metropolitan Development Council. I think a significant part of that is people returning from the war with severe health issues. This is an opportunity for people to regain some stability and really just recover in a peaceful setting, she added. Part of the council's mission is to provide affordable housing and reduce homelessness, making the partnership a good one for the VA and the county, Burgess said. The nonprofit has raised $75,000 for the first phase of the project, but expects it will take another 11/2 years to raise the remaining money. The total project cost is estimated at $6 million. Burgess said she hopes the renovated barracks can open in 2011. “It really benefits both parties, and in the end it benefits the people we are trying to house, Burgess said.
PARTNERING WITH THE COMMUNITY
John Lee, director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, said he wants to see the Soldiers Home grow to serve not only a wider population of veterans, but also the nearby community. The department is trying to increase its connections with the City of Orting and the Orting School District. A healing garden designed by University of Washington landscape architecture students will also appear in the next few years, and possibly a military museum. I'm trying to look at this in terms of the vision for the Soldiers Home for the decades ahead, Lee said. We'd like to integrate the people coming into that community with the community here in Orting. Already the city's Parks and Recreation Department has started holding some recreational baseball games on the campus, Orting Mayor Cheryl Temple said. Temple said she hopes the city can soon market the Soldiers Home as an attraction for people to visit in Orting. They're kind of opening up to us, Temple said. We're really excited to be able to market them. Talks with the Orting School District include providing community service opportunities and job shadow programs. For instance, students could learn about medicine from nurses who work at the home's skilled-nursing facility, school Superintendent Jeff Davis said. The idea is to make it a win-win situation, so their residents have the opportunity to be a part of this community and our students have a chance to explore career opportunities, Davis said.
NEW THERAPIES
Students in the UW's therapeutic garden certificate program have already gotten involved. They've come up with designs for a healing and walking garden at the Soldiers Home that could be used for physical therapy. It would be placed next to the skilled-nursing facility, said Roxanne Hamilton, a lecturer in the university's landscape architecture department. Research has shown that patients benefit from using a garden as a social setting as well as a site for outdoor physical therapy, Hamilton said. Patients also could help take care of the garden. We're designing ways that people can do all their physical therapy activities, but outdoors, Hamilton said. People's fine motor skills and general health and well-being can improve greatly through personal one-on-one interaction with plants. Lachman said he hopes the garden will be just one of the new therapeutic additions to the Soldiers Home. The state VA is looking to add speech therapists to help patients who have suffered head injuries. Their work could correspond with a potential service dog and kennel therapy program and day-care services for traumatic brain injury patients. Eventually, the state VA wants to have an information center at the Soldiers Home that can educate people about living with brain injuries, Lachman said. Veterans Affairs is formulating plans to increase services this year and hopes to move forward in the next two years. We are learning more and more about the brain. We cannot just write off these young veterans who are injured, Lachman said. We have to have an aggressive program. Melissa Santos: 253-552-7058
Posted by: Duke Paulson
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