Olivia Charis Photo
Bedroom that's a part of Colombus House's transitional housing
A $30,000 grant from the Bob Woodruff Foundation will enable Columbus House to place more military veterans into transitional housing, including bedrooms like the one pictured above.
Officials of the homeless-housing nonprofit showed that room and other amenities during a tour Wednesday to discuss the grant organized at the agency’s main shelter and administrative building on Ella Grasso Boulevard.
Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton, Chief Development Officer John Brooks, Chief Program Officer Hebe Kudisch, and Grants Administrator Sarah Hoffman conducted the tour for Bob Woodruff Foundation (BWF) CEO Anne Marie Dougherty, Chief Program Officer Margaret Harrell, Board Member Eileen Lynch, Director of Grants Emily Bader, and Senior Program Officer Emily Krause. Based in New York, The BWF is a nonprofit that seeks out and supports organizations serving veterans.
Hebe Kudisch, Columbus House Chief Program Officer, showing the facilities.
The grant will boost Columbus House’s efforts directed specifically at veterans, many of whom sleep outside in New Haven.
Specifically, it will help Columbus House offer housing and support for up to 35 veterans per year at its Harkness House location on Davenport Avenue in the Hill neighborhood. In addition to a place to sleep, Harkness House offers veterans health referrals, mental health support, employment assistance, and help with securing permanent housing.
With the help of the BWF grant, Columbus House will be able to make sure “veterans who are on the path from experiencing homelessness to permanent housing have all of the pieces in place to make that transition possible,” said Columbus House CEO Middleton. She noted that the affordable housing crisis, with attendant high rents, makes it difficult for veterans to find apartments to live in.
Columbus House CEO Middleton with BWF Chief Program Officer Harrell.
The Grass Boulevard facility holds up to 101 people. 14 of those beds are part of the medical respite program housed on the third floor, and reserved for people coming from the hospital emergency room. When clients have finished their hospital stay, they need somewhere to reside while they continue to get “prescriptions refilled” and “wounds re-dressed,” noted John Brooks. Research done by Yale University have shown a significant decrease in re-admit rates for hospitals as a result of the program.
BWF CEO Dougherty, said the nonprofit chose to work with Columbus House because they recognize they are “on the cutting edge”, highlighting their adeptness in terms of “adoptability, evidence based care” and “staying connected to their mission”.
“We’re really tuned into what Columbus House is doing … because we are all feeling the effects of the affordable housing crisis” said Dougherty.
Columbus House has moved 213 veteran households from homelessness and into permanent housing since the start of the pandemic. They have done so while navigating uncertainty over evolving government mandates regarding homeless shelters, to placing veterans at local hotels to prevent outbreaks.
“We don’t want to just be managing homelessness” Middleton said. “[We] want to be working towards solutions for homelessness.”
Thank you to the Bob Woodruff Foundation and congratulations to Columbus House for this grant to support veterans being sheltered. It is shameful that our country doesn’t provide sufficient decent affordable housing for so many homeless veterans who have served and sacrificed for our country. The federal government should create a new GI bill that builds veterans apartment or condo housing with supportive services on site nearby to VA hospitals and clinics and in transportation rich municipalities.