Fayetteville veterans home winter move raises questions. The public deserves answers.
Myron B. PittsStaff at the North Carolina State Veterans Home and state officials are being tight-lipped on why they have to move as many as 85 residents out by February, and close the home for two years. We are told it is for renovations, with few other details.
A concerned public deserves more information.
More:Temporary closure of Fayetteville veterans home sparks concerns. Where will residents will go?
The Veterans Home is a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility located off Ramsey Street near the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs oversees the facility, which is operated by PruittHealth, a private company.
A family member of one of the veterans sent The Fayetteville Observer a copy of a letter from Pruitt Health that informed residents the center would temporarily close, an action it described as in the best interest of the “health and well-being” of residents. A new facility will be built, the letter stated. However, it did not share the specific nature of the concerns about the present site.
More:Did Army soldiers invent a device to prevent mold in barracks?
A son of a resident who talked to a Fayetteville Observer reporter said he became frustrated in an attempt to get more information.
A move in the dead of winter
Not lost on anyone is that these veterans, many of them elderly or infirm, will have to find brand new homes quickly and in winter, as the city experienced just this week its first “white flag” nights with temperatures below freezing.
An official with North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs said his agency was “currently assessing needed structural repairs and maintenance to the facility.” He said there were no plans to move residents out of Fayetteville or disrupt “continuity of care.”
As for more specifics, the Observer reporter ran into the same wall as the family member seeking information.
‘A reluctance to comment’
N.C. Rep. Charles Smith, who represents Fayetteville, could only learn that repairs would be expensive and that the problems the repairs would fix would otherwise continue to crop up. Smith has speculated, that based on his information, the facility’s foundation may be the issue.
Employees with PruittHealth referred inquiries back to the state Military and Veterans Affairs department.
One family member of a resident said of PruittHealth and state officials: “It makes you wonder by their reluctance to even comment.”
It does.
But it does not have to be this way.
Lack of information leads to mold rumors
In 2019, Cumberland County Schools had to move students out of T.C. Berrien Elementary School on North Street in Fayetteville after it was discovered it had mold, air quality issues and problems with the foundation. No parents were happy, but the system kept them in the loop during the difficult process and temporary relocation to a school in Spring Lake.
True, local government can often be more responsive than federal government because of the reduced red tape. But transparency is preferred at all levels of government.
Like so many here in the Fort Liberty community, residents in the state Veterans Home took a solemn oath to defend the Constitution and many did so at great cost to their health or personal lives. More than just family members are invested in the fate of these veterans, who are being displaced at a time in their lives when they are most vulnerable.
In the community, unsubstantiated rumors are flying that mold is involved. Rumors are what happens when there is an information vacuum.
A discouraging past: Moldy barracks at Liberty, foul water at LeJeune
Meanwhile, service members and their families are forgiven any skepticism they may have about cloudy government actions related to their living quarters.
Fresh in people’s minds is the Army, last summer, moving more than 1,200 soldiers out of moldy barracks at Fort Liberty. Then there was the decades-long water contamination that harmed generations of Marines and their families stationed at Camp Lejeune.
We cannot undo those past actions.
But transparency goes a long way toward improving the future — whether it's for our active-duty fighting force or our veterans.
Opinion Editor Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.