Then-Gov. Jim Justice speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Charles Calvin Rogers Veterans Nursing Facility in Beckley, West Virginia, October 23, 2023. (Photo courtesy of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice’s Office)
On a bright fall day in 2023, then-Gov. Jim Justice plunged a silver shovel into the ground and ceremoniously tossed dirt into the air to celebrate the groundbreaking of a veterans nursing home in Beckley, West Virginia.
“This facility is long overdue,” Justice said an interview at the event. “Honestly, I really wanted this one.”
At Justice’s request, state lawmakers allocated about $8 million for the facility in 2021. The remainder of the project would be funded through federal Veterans Affairs funds.
construction was expected be completed by 2025.
Now the page remains blank. Due to a lack of federal funding from the VA, nothing was built.
Justice, a Republican who now sits in the U.S. Senate, is frustrated with the situation, his spokesman told West Virginia Watch.
“The issue has been raised with the VA,” Justice communications director Will O’Grady said Dec. 17. “It won’t go away until we get a clear answer.”
The facility would house 90 to 120 veterans in four different local communities. It would include a library, a chapel, a physical therapy room and a unit specifically for veterans battling dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Then-Gov. Jim Justice attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Charles Calvin Rogers Veterans Nursing Facility in Beckley, West Virginia on October 23, 2023.
The project was original expected to cost 44 million dollars.
“…A“Although it is designated as a priority project under the VA’s State Home Construction Grant Program, federal funds have not been released,” Randy Coleman, deputy cabinet secretary for the West Virginia Department of Veterans Assistance, said in an email.
Coleman said there are “a large number” of Tier 1 projects also awaiting federal funding.
“The VA has given us — or any other state, I’m told — no indication of when the funds might be disbursed,” he said.
To date, $3.2 million has been spent on the design of the nursing home. Ryan Kennedy, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs told lawmakers in February.
In 2023, Justice ceremoniously signed architectural and engineering contracts with SFCS Architects and Thrasher Engineering to oversee architectural and engineering work for the Beckley facility. The companies did not respond to inquiries about the project.
Daniel Hall, a Raleigh County commissioner, served in the state legislature as Beckley-area lawmakers worked to bring a VA nursing home to Southwest Virginia.
“I’m surprised the government hasn’t stepped up to do their bit. We’re doing our bit and why aren’t they doing their bit?” he asked.
Beckley lawmakers called for a VA nursing home more than a decade ago
More than a decade ago, veterans told lawmakers it was a nursing home in Beckley needed. In the aging state of West Virginia, the only VA nursing home is in Clarksburg.
“I know there are a lot [veterans] “The people who worked on it have since passed away,” Hall said. “Maybe their work won’t be in vain.”
In 2014, state senators agreed an invoice order the construction of the facility. The veterans nursing home would be located next to Jackie Withrow Hospital.
“The Legislature notes that nearly 200,000 veterans in this State have distinguished themselves through the highest per capita contribution of any State to the wars fought by this Nation,” the legislation states. “…An aging veteran population suffering from war disabilities and illnesses needs or will need skilled nursing care.”
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed the bill, but it did not include funding. Years passed without the project moving.
Then Justice made it a passion project and with that Support from the legislature in 2021 he has planned around $8 million in the budget proposal, which would serve as a counterpart to the federal subsidies for the construction of the facility.
“We were just sure it was going to happen. Obviously it didn’t.” Hall said.
And money from 2016 The invoice This resulted in taxes on certain high-powered fireworks and was also intended to facilitate pay for the nursing home in Beckley, Virginia.
O’Grady said the judiciary will continue to address the delay in needed federal funding.
justice, while governor, said The novel care facility is scheduled to be built in 2023 “It means a lot to our veterans and their families who have long needed this facility in Southwest Virginia.”
The hospital is named to honor Vietnam veteran and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Charles Calvin Rogers, who died in 1990.
President Richard Nixon awarded Rogers, a Fayette County native, the Medal of Honor in 1970, making him the highest-ranking African-American service member to receive the award.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.
