85 residents impacted by NC Veterans Home closing in Fayetteville
More than 80 veterans will have to move out of the North Carolina State Veterans Home in Fayetteville by February.
WRAL News spoke to the family members of several veterans who live at the skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility at 214 Cochran Ave. Family members said they were told just before Thanksgiving that the facility will be shut down within the next two months.
Louise Sweeney's 90-year-old father, retired Master Sgt Edward Sanders is one of them.
"And right here at the holidays? you know," Louise Sweeney, veteran's daughter said. "This uncertainty about placement and proximity of where they're going to send my dad? it's very worrisome."
The US Department of Veteran Affairs opened the Fayetteville home in 1999. Pruitt Health has the contract to operate the facility and has been doing so for the past 20 years.
The company released a letter saying it would be too expensive to make needed repairs the home.
"We're told there are structural problems and mold in the building that started when it was flooded during Hurricane Matthew. So the plan is to tear it down and build another. The process is going to take at least two years," the company wrote in the letter.
This news is heartbreaking for Sharon Daniels, whose mother resides in the home. It also weighs heavily on Elizabeth Rowe, whose father, retired SFC James Hogg, has considered this place home for the last four years.
"To be moved elsewhere to another veterans home would be Kinston, Salisbury or Black Mountain," Elizabeth Rowe, veteran's daughter said. "Black mountain if four and and half hours away. I would have to plan that for a whole weekend."
Pruitt Homes is in the process of making arrangements to relocate the veterans to other homes throughout the state.
Many family members told WRAL News they are not waiting and will make other arrangements to keep their loved ones close to Fayetteville.
The Fayetteville Observer reports the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs oversees the Fayetteville facility and four other veteran homes in Black Mountain, Kernersville, Kinston and Salisbury.
