image description
Turner House in Williamstown is ceasing operations.

Williamstown Veterans Home to Cease Current Operation

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — After 20 years of providing transitional housing to veterans, Turner House is facing a transition of its own.

The Simonds Road nonprofit announced this week that it will end its current operations on Sept. 30, yielding to market forces that have made its model unsustainable in the relatively isolated, small town setting.
 
A big driver in the decision is an institutional change in focus at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which in recent years has placed more emphasis on placing homeless vets into permanent housing, rather than using the temporary, transitional beds at “Grant Per Diem” homes like Turner House.
 
“In many respects, this is positive,” Turner House Executive Director Scott Haskell said on Friday. “A lot of good work has occurred from and with us and with the VA. People love to bash the VA, but they’ve done a lot of good work.”
 
But Turner House needs to stay financially viable, and the VA, with its changing focus, has been forced to cut back on reimbursements under the Grant Per Diem program.
 
“[The Department of Housing and Urban Development] is doing the same thing,” Haskell said. “New York has had a couple of cuts to very large grants for their homeless shelters because HUD wanted the money to go toward permanent housing.
 
“For the VA, a lot of this is a reaction to the president’s push. Five years ago this past December, he came out with a goal to end veterans homelessness by December 2015. Some communities have done this. They’re at 0 percent homelessness for veterans.”
 
In some U.S. cities, a homeless veteran is placed in a permanent home within 24 hours of going into the system, Haskell said.
 
Nowadays, a system that did not have enough transitional beds to meet the need has too many short-term options like Turner, where veterans have been able to stay for up to 90 days.
 
“This has impacted Grant Per Diems around the country,” Haskell said. “We’re probably one of the first go out of the business. Many of the Grant Per Diems are part of a larger program that does permanent housing. [Veterans advocacy group] Soldier On is an example. They’re doing a lot of their own permanent housing.
 
“Grant Per Diems that want to be solely Grant Per Diems need to be in a different area.”
 
That hints at the other driver forcing the Turner House board of directors’ decision: location.
 
Haskell said he recently attended a conference where a speaker was talking about the ideal location for veterans housing.
 
“He said you need to be close to a VA hospital, you need to be close to jobs and close to vets in need,” Haskell said. “I’m sitting there thinking: Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3.”
 
He said the quiet setting in Williamstown’s north end suits some veterans to a T. But the address is not served by bus, and the nearest retail is the Stewart’s Shop in Pownal, Vt., about a mile up Route 7.
 
“A lot of guys, particularly the younger guys coming back from the Mideast, want to be in the middle of everything,” Haskell said.
 
Turner House has nine single-bed rooms. It currently has approval from the VA for up to seven Grant Per Diem residents, but only five of those beds are filled, Haskell said.
 
Over the last two decades, hundreds of veterans have benefited from Turner House. Haskell can’t say exactly how many have transitioned to permanent housing because privacy laws don’t allow the facility to keep any kind of formal records.
 
“Some of them have settled here in North County,” he said. “I know a bunch of people who have moved on and done very well. Some will say their life was saved by the experience at Turner House, and that’s the same for any Grant Per Diem.
 
“I don’t have statistics to give you. That’s a good question. HIPAA laws make it difficult to follow up, but we do hear things.”
 
Haskell said Turner House’s board is trying to figure out the next step for the nonprofit, including what will become of the home donated by World War II veteran Ferman Turner in the 1990s.
 
One option includes some sort of permanent housing for veterans. At the other end of the spectrum, the residence could be sold.
 
“If it did come to selling the house, any proceeds would go to a foundation to help veterans,” Haskell said. “[The nonprofit's future] depends on the market, frankly, the need and the demand.”

Tags: veterans,   veterans services,   

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
View Full Story

More Williamstown Stories