 Lakeland Public Television presents Currents. And welcome to Lakeland Currents. I'm Bethany Wesley. For about a decade, the Northern Minnesota Veterans' Home Task Force has been advocating for the construction of a veterans' home that would serve the thousands of veterans living in and around Beltrami County. There are about 28,000 veterans living in the 16-county Northern Minnesota region. This region includes the counties of Beltrami, Cass, Clearwater, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, Kitson, Kuchaching, Lake of the Woods, Minoman, Marshall, Norman, Pennington, Polk, Red Lake, and Roseau. Supporters of the Veteran's Home Project argue that these veterans are geographically isolated from the existing veterans' homes in the state and thus underserved. In recent weeks, bills have been introduced in the Minnesota House and Senate that would fund the construction of two veterans' homes, including one here in Bemidji. To talk us through the proposal and its potential impacts, I welcome to the program two men who are veterans themselves. Scotty Allison is the Veterans' Service Officer for Beltrami County, and Joe Benny is a former Beltrami County Commissioner. Welcome to the program. Thanks for having us today. Thank you for this opportunity. As we get started, do you guys want to introduce yourselves, talk a little bit about what your role is in the project and your past service, if you would like? Yes. I served three years in the United States Navy, and then I served 28 and a half years on active duty in the Army. I retired in 2010, and I'm currently the Beltrami County Veterans' Service Officer since April 2012. Okay, Joe. I'm a veteran of the United States Army. Active duty, 1957 or 1959, served in a field artillery battalion in Germany. It was six years reserve time that went into the Vietnam era, but I did serve in Europe and in Germany. I'm a member of the Ralph Gracie Post, 14, American Legion in Bemidji, and also DAV Chapter 7 Junior Vice Commander at this time. Okay. As we get started, I want to talk first about the numbers, kind of talk about the need or the argument for why a veteran's home would be beneficial. So we talked about 28,000 people in terms of the 16 County. Let's break it down a little bit smaller to Beltrami County. What's the number, Scotty? It's about 3,400 veterans. All of the information we got on the veteran population comes from the American Community Survey of the U.S. Census from 2015. So that is where we use our database. So it shows approximately 18,155 veterans live in the Beltrami County and the Ninth Surrounding County. So you have a big density of veterans located right around Bemidji. Okay. Is that why Bemidji has kind of been targeted for the place where this might be the most appropriate? Well, there's a lot of other reasons, but that's one of the reasons. Okay. If you were to look at a map of the 16 County area, you would see that the nearest veteran's home would be in Fergus Falls, which is over 120 miles away. And then there's another veteran's home up in Silver Bay, which is even further. So there's a great need for a veteran's home in this area. That is one of the reasons why we want to locate it here. But there's lots of other things like the Sanford Medical Capabilities here, the large Native American Indian population here, veterans. Over one-third of the American Indian veterans live around Beltrami County. Oh, wow. A third in the state? A third in the state. So there's approximately 3,000 American Indian veterans that reside in Minnesota, and we have over 1,000 of them up here in this area. Okay. I think it's important to mention, too, that when the facility is designed, built and opened, we will take care of veterans' physical mental needs also. When you heard Scotty mention Native American veterans, we were going to have a cultural, spiritual American Indian presence in the facility. We will have created a welcoming atmosphere, if you will, for all veterans, whatever their persuasions are, whatever their needs are, beyond the basic residential component. But the specialty care that they will need based on the conditions that they've inherited from their service experience in combat and so forth. Fair to say their needs are unique. Yes, they certainly are. Is there specific needs that existing nursing homes and services are handicapped and trying to help them? Well, I guess we could say, Scotty, that the so-called regular nursing homes do a good job in serving their clientele. But veterans have conditions and situations that are unique to their service experience, physical health, mental health, for example, the environmental hazards that they were exposed to during the Gulf War, toxic contaminants, agent orans, wounds, traumatic brain injury, other debilitations. It's readily available, for example, if you have a physical ailment, but it's not so apparent if you have a mental condition that you inherited from your combat or military experience. And these are the kinds of specialty care items that are unique to veterans and that will be met in the veterans' home milieu that we will have created through the Northern Minnesota Veterans' Home. Fair to say you've been working toward this for about 10 years. Is that right? Very fair to say. Okay. And was there something that prompted those early discussions or it was just veterans were just talking over time or what kind of started the conversations? Well, please chime in on this, too, Scotty. There are any several of us through the Veterans' Service Organization, the VFW, the Legion, the DAV, that recognized that there's a real void in this area of the state when it comes to a continuum of care that might be provided through veterans' homes when we found that our veterans' populations were located two, three and four hours away from pre-existing facilities and therefore the distance factor found that there were large numbers of either underserved or unserved veterans whose medical and other needs were not being met. And the state of Minnesota has had availability of beds so the federal government mandates how many beds you can have for veterans' home capabilities within a state. We right now, we have a deficit of about 144 beds so if you don't use them, you just don't use them. So this is the time to get those beds in place because the population is aging rapidly meaning that over 65-year-old veterans has increased dramatically since the first time I took a survey of the number of veterans. Would you say the need is continuing to grow then as veterans are getting older? Yes, so right now in our area, 55.1% of the veterans in the 16-town area are over age 65. But what you have is, so when we did the count last, we've lost about 3,500 veterans out of the area. But what's happening is the population is aging rapidly and the facts of some of the talks that they were exposed to, I'm specifically talking about Vietnam-era veterans and the relation to Agent Orange and their health conditions is just getting worse. The number of diseases that veterans from the Vietnam War have are multiple, including things like diabetes, heart condition, cancer, you just name it. And so those veterans, what they need is increasing dramatically even though the number of veterans is decreasing. I think it's important too and I'm sure Scotty can give us better detail but a prerequisite to having a veterans home is having a community-based outpatient clinic located in the community. You must have an outpatient clinic to have a veterans home. And right now Scotty will tell us about the CBOC that we have and how it will be expanded and ultimately can be located within the Northern Minnesota Veterans Home itself. So the VA clinic, they expect it to be open, I believe around about January 2018. What I'm talking about is we currently have a VA clinic on Fifth Street but it's dramatically increasing in size. It's actually doubling in size and they're putting in capabilities that they do not have plus they're configuring the VA clinic to look like other VA clinics. You know, waiting rooms where you go to see the doctor, where you go to see the nurse, tally medicine. So it is actually moving location and it's going closer to the Sanford campus as we speak. So that will be an enhanced capability for the veterans who are using the veterans home. Most of their healthcare needs can be taken care of by that VA clinic when it's all set up and ready to go. Oh, interesting. I want to start talking about the actual proposal itself at this time. So right now it is, correct me when I'm wrong, $16 million to fund two veterans homes, correct? Correct. And they would be one in Bemidji and one in Montevideo. Correct. Why the partnership? Well, it seems that we have a better chance in the legislative process that we have a focus on two areas that are established in need rather than one alone. So we're partnering with Montevideo to accomplish the desired result, getting our home in this area and then helping facilitate Montevideo getting their home down in their area. It seemed to have emerged as a natural partnership in the legislature that now has support from a broad body of legislators that are from a wide area of Minnesota. I think we want to call attention to the two bills in the legislature right now. House file 1109 and the Senate file. Senate file is 1089. 1089 and we have certainly staunch support. We've testified in committee before the House committee, Representative Grossell and Bliss, Representative Tim Miller and John Poston and of course our senators as well. Senators Paul Utke and Justin Icaor and we have yet to testify in the Senate but I'm sure we will be called. So we're gathering support and traction that we feel cautiously optimistic about that we have not had in the past. There's a kind of a natural life and growth through processes and we think that that support now is becoming stronger and is better founded and we hope to accomplish the desired result before too long. Are you seeing that too, Scotty? You think that because of this partnership you're getting maybe perhaps a little bit more momentum than you've had in recent years? Right, like I said, I mean what you have is the availability of 140 beds so it's a natural thing to split it, give 70 beds to each area and then you're supporting the veterans down in that area which there's also a need and what you have right now is it's kind of the perfect storm. You have the changing of the legislator, number one, number two you have some people call it surplus, there's various names for it but there is a large state surplus right now and this is not a regular bonding year so typically these kind of projects we're going to the bonding bill but there is a chance now that it could be just come out direct funding. So and if not successful this year then we would look for it to be in the bonding bill next year. I'd like to just expand on your question Bethany on why, why two homes. Perhaps Senator or Representative Miller put it best when he said that if we put pit one region versus another say Montevideo and Bemidji lawmakers will be forced to make a choice over where to build a veterans home where the reality really is that both areas have established a need and combining both bills to provide veterans home in the two areas makes better sense so we're not pitting one area against another. How confident or how do you feel about the chances of actually getting funding yet this year? You mentioned the possibility of carrying it over toward bonding but do you feel like there's a good chance this year? I believe there is a very good chance this year. It just seems we have political will, we have the will of not just the people down in the state capital but recently the Beltrami County commissioners they passed a resolution to provide one million dollars in bonding money or money to build to construct the veterans home so even here in our county we see the will to do this. We also are going out to the other counties that are in the area and we're requesting to see if they possibly might want to help with the project. So yeah I believe my gut tells me this is the year. This is going to be our best year. I want to absolutely applaud our veterans service officer and his department in that we serve veterans no matter where they're found to be living. If they stop in Beltrami County Veterans Service Officer they will receive services and attention for their needs and I think that's a wonderful gesture on our part and I think that that is the thing to do. How helpful will it be to be able to go down to St. Paul and say you know what we have this one million dollar commitment from the local counties possibly even more if other counties buy in. Does that help show legislators that the community supports it? Absolutely. It shows that there is a pre-established resolve that this be done. We're also going to be visiting the tribal governances. Again you heard Scotty talk about the substantial population complement of Indian veterans. So we want to visit with the Red Lake Nation, with Leech Lake, with Widers, with Boys Fort. And they know of us and we know of them. And the basic marching orders here is to deliver services to veterans. A substantial portion of which happened to be American Indian veterans. We did mention the county's contribution. We should talk too about the land itself because that is a contribution, correct? Where is it going to be located Scotty? The veterans home Sanford Health has given a large donation of I think it's 15 acres of land. It was appraised by the county assessor at $975,000 almost a million dollars. But that was several years ago. So the land is probably worth more than that. But the land has been donated, it's there, it's ready to go. We just got to get the shovels in there absolutely. We continue to receive reiteration that this offer is firm. So we need to get these processes going to accomplish the desired end. And there's just a lot of support within the medical community itself. The Sanford Health Systems Board is very much interested in a very cognizant of the needs that exist to serve veterans in our area. Will it be beneficial to not just have the land, but you're going to be located near the hospital. So does that make sense to kind of have that communication a little bit easier? Right now, a lot of people think that all veterans go to the VA clinic and, you know, veterans in this area go to the VA clinic and then use the Fargo VA Medical Center. But the fact is a number of veterans because of age, because of the infirmities can't travel. So what happens is they are given out of VA medical appointment, meaning in this area a lot of them go to Sanford already to receive medical care. So Sanford will, they'll have capabilities for our population. One of the things about a veterans home, you do have to meet the requirements of nursing home kind of physical standards or assisted living. So you have to meet those standards first to get in. It's not, you can't be able to go into a veterans home. So that with having Sanford here and then having an enhanced VA CBOC or VA clinic, I mean we'll be able to take care of the veterans as they live in the veterans home. You might want also, Bethany, ask Scotty to talk about the wait times that exist in the other homes. At the existing houses? Yeah, we're going to get to that. Go ahead. Yeah, so right now our office, we see basically about a six to eight month waiting time to get into a veterans home. If it's related to Alzheimer's or dementia, it's a longer waiting time, which put strains on the families that want to use the veterans homes. Now veterans homes are run by the state. They're not run by the federal government. So, and there's only so much capability inside there. We're not going to be able to take care of all the veterans. We know this, but we will be able to take care of some amount of the veterans at the end of their, you know, end of life kind of expectations. How important is it to be able to tell veterans that, you know, they go, you have gone out, you've served, you've fought, you've defended, now come home you're in your final twilight years. How do they feel? You've talked to veterans, how do you feel? They feel as we do. I think they feel as the president of the United States says he feels and this is almost a direct quote. Veterans have taken care of us. We need now to take care of our veterans. And I think that to be true amongst any and all veteran populations that realize that there's a real and present and substantial need that has yet to be fulfilled, yet to be met. So when you're down in St. Paul, do you feel like the legislators believe there is a need and agree with you? It's just a matter of finding the funds or what has been the, what's been the hurdle? I think that just my perspective is it's mainly a finding, it's getting the will to find the funds. It is a competing thing. There's lots of needs out there. Schools, infrastructure, but, you know, quite truthfully much of the ability for this country to be free and the way we live was put on the backs of young soldiers and young airmen and they served their countries and now we need to recognize the fact that, I'll give an example, in the 16 county area if you count the veterans with disabilities, there's over 6,500 of them have some kind of disability caused by their military service. If you take higher numbers and you say, okay, what about people who are extremely disabled now would consider somebody what we call is service-connected disabilities. Somebody who is a rating of 70% or more typically has they're quite disabled and so their needs are much greater than the typical American citizen. So they may be 24 years old and already be rated out at 100% disabled. So they have great needs and like I say because of the toxic effect of Agent Orange, the burn pits you know, depleted uranium the fires in Kuwait the oil fires and just doing some of your business in deserts or in the mountain areas or the swamps it just puts things into your body that normally just wouldn't be there and so we have a pretty high level of disabled veteran population in the county area. I think it's important to Scotty and Bethany to respond to the question as we did when we testified in committee will you offer services to women veterans? Well certainly because they are a substantial portion of our veteran population and we can and we will serve the needs of women veterans as well. Okay. What do you think veterans homes the fact is they like being part of the veteran team they're around comrades from different areas they may not all have been in the same war some of them may not have ever been in a war about 52% of all veterans in this area have served in combat the rest were peacetime veterans but nevertheless they were serving and quite truthfully if you fall off a truck and you break your leg and your hip it's still an injury caused by your service but the fact is they like to be around other veterans and veterans homes specifically orient themselves on doing other things and just staying in the nursing home assisted living condition they take them out on trips they take them to veterans functions they fishing hunting they do lots other things besides just be a place where you go to reside for your final well pit put and also I think it's important to note that the non-military population the general population very supportive of veterans we found don't you agree scotty statewide are specifically in this area both both both and so so if you get the funding this year how soon could the facility be built and open that's a great question typically it would take from the moment the funds are appropriated and placed against it and we have the operational funding it's going to it's a three to four year process the operational funding who would fund the operation that comes from the state so when if it was built the funds would come from both the state the federal government and from self-pay so some veterans would be they can use the veterans homes but they do not have a service connecting condition and if they have the where for all they're going to pay their own way a veteran who needs that kind of level care and let's say they had $500,000 they're going to pay $7,000 a month to be in a veterans home another veteran who doesn't have that you know basically it would be paid for both by the federal government and the state government so it's about a one-third breakdown and I would like to sound the clarion call to the state legislature in that there are 144 beds reimbursement available through the federal government that I hope that the state of Minnesota will capture between Bemidji and Montevideo because if the state of Minnesota does not capture these beds the funds for these beds some other state will and that would not be in the best interest of Minnesota veterans fair to say there would have to be some kind of economic benefit beyond the benefits that the veterans themselves would be receiving I would assume some kind of job creation correct? Yeah we don't typically talk about what jobs would be created by the vets homes but you're right I mean first you would have the construction of the facility so that would the local labor you know statewide labor those kind of things architects engineers and all that and then you would have the operational piece which would require nurses doctors janitors you know caregivers I've heard it said that you know veterans home once it's decided to build one generates about 200 jobs that's what I'm hearing. And a good fill in to what Scott is talking about is where will these jobs come from how can we expect that healthcare professionals can even be acquired can be hired we have Bemidji State University and its healthcare preparedness career programs along with the technical college Bemidji Technical College that's a natural feeder of professionals that can come to and be hired at the Northern Minnesota Veterans Home. Naturally placed is that element as well and we have talked to Bemidji State University Minsk officials in the past and we believe they would certainly be strongly supportive of this in this area. So what would you say to the viewers veterans and non-veterans alike who are watching this now and perhaps they agree there's a need what can they do what can you ask for help? Well on the 20th of March at the down in the capitol is the Veterans Day so if you're a veteran or family member of a veteran and you see a need for this you can go down there and support the efforts of the veterans down there to talk about this you could contact your local legislators and tell them this is what we want you can also contact federal legislators and tell them we want and get them going with both of the senators and the congressmen. And at the same time Scotty and I or others there's an agency an organization out in their own community some school group some community group that would like to learn more about what it is that our mission represents here we're glad to come and present. Well listen I want to thank you guys for coming in and talking and taking us through this whole issue. Thank you for watching. The website on the bottom of the screen will take you to a site where you can look up bills to watch how they're progressing in the state and the senate the house and the senate. I'd encourage you to visit that and see how it is going. Thank you. Join me next time.