Gov. Ferguson requests $11 million for design of new Spokane Veterans home

Gov. Bob Ferguson has requested $11 million from the Legislature for the design and preconstruction of a new 120-bed veterans home in Spokane.

If approved next year, the money would help fund the project to replace Spokane’s existing veterans home, which officials say is too small and outdated to provide adequate services. Last month, the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs purchased a 41.5-acre plot of land west of the Dwight Merkel Sports Complex for $7 million, where the new facility will be built.

The purchase was funded through money allocated by the state Legislature earlier this year.

According to the request, which was included in Ferguson’s supplemental budget proposal, the new facility would include private rooms, communal living areas, expanded outdoor spaces and a dedicated memory care unit for veterans.

The current veterans home is the smallest of the four operated by the state Department of Veterans Affairs and provides nursing care for approximately 98 resident veterans. In March, Ferguson traveled to Spokane to tour the existing facility at 222 E. Fifth Ave. Following the tour, the governor said he would continue to advocate for federal funding for the project.

“That will be part of my next trip to Washington, D.C., to really advocate for this,” Ferguson said. “Because it is needed for folks who served our country to have a facility that matches their contributions to our state and country. We should match that with a facility that is appropriate.”

During an Oct. 30 hearing of the Joint Committee on Veterans’ and Military Affairs, David Puente, director of the Department of Veteran Affairs, outlined the challenges of the current veterans home, which has been in use since the 1970s.

According to Puente, the existing facility sits on 1.75 acres of land, which he said, “in essence (is) a parking lot.”

“The home, it was a medical facility that we repurposed to turn into a state veterans home,” Puente said. “There really is no outdoor space for veterans to be able to walk and enjoy the outside.”

The layout of the facility is also not ideal, Puente said. The current veterans home has double rooms with a curtain divider in the middle, which Puente described as a “hospital-like setting versus a homelike setting.”

The location of the land purchased by the Department of Veterans Affairs has several benefits, Puente said. Located directly west of the Dwight Merkel Sports Complex and north of Pauline Flett Middle School, the close proximity to Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center would reduce costs and travel, increase access to the facility and improve the quality of care, according to Puente.

The site also would allow greater community involvement, Puente said.

“It gives us the opportunity to use this location to better engage with our community partners, our veterans service organizations, and just in general, to provide that community engagement for not only our residents, but to allow our residents to find other areas that they can provide, sort of that purpose and sense of life for them,” Puente said.

Puente said the new facility would model the agency’s “small house model” style of facility, with a central hub located in the middle and living spaces that branch out.

The veterans home would cost $162 million total, of which 65%, or $97 million, will be paid for by the federal government, Punete said.

Puente said it will “likely take several years” to be fully funded and for construction to begin for the new veterans home.