Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 10, 1995 TAG: 9503100043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The rent took a good chunk of his monthly Social Security and veteran's disability checks. The house had no washer or dryer, nor did it have a kitchen. He carried his dirty clothes to a coin-operated laundry. He ate at fast-food restaurants.
Three weeks ago, a resident ``went berserk and shot up the house,'' the 64-year-old Norfolk native said.
``That was it. I had to move out. It put me close to a nervous breakdown.''
Pugh got in his car and headed west, with no particular destination in mind. A Korean War veteran, he wound up at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem, his heart and asthma medications out of whack, his body feeling the effects.
But after a two-week stay - with medications ``smoothed out'' and body settled - Pugh was ready to be discharged. Yet he had no place to go, until the VA referred him to SRO, the Roanoke At Home Single Room Occupancy Project.
Six years ago, a partnership of Roanoke agencies, including Total Action Against Poverty, embarked on a project to rehabilitate old structures in Roanoke into single-room units for homeless people who were single, over 18, medically and mentally stable and earning enough to live independently.
Now Pugh lives in a room in a spacious, newly renovated house on Patterson Avenue in Southwest Roanoke.
A kitchen is a few steps from his room. A compact washer and dryer will be installed soon, just outside his room. Rent is about $60 less than what he paid at the Hampton rooming house.
``It took a 200-pound burden off my shoulders,'' Pugh said Thursday, standing in his room. The room was meticulous, tidied for an open-house celebration to mark completion of the Patterson Avenue house renovation, called the SRO project's largest and most complicated effort.
``I feel great,'' he said, ``like finally after all these years of suffering, maybe I'm supposed to be able to live a normal life.''
The Patterson Avenue house is the fourth of five to be renovated by the project, whose clients include referrals from the VA Medical Center, TAP's Transitional Living Center, Blue Ridge Community Services and the Blue Ridge Independent Living Center.
Divided into four sections, the house has 11 units. Seven are occupied, and the building is expected to be full by Monday.
Skip Compton, 37, moved in last week after completing a substance-abuse program at the VA Medical Center.
``A month ago, I had no hopes of life,'' he said. ``I stayed real depressed. It didn't seem like I had a future. Now I've got a home and people who care. Now I've got a little bit of self-esteem back.''
Four of the five SRO buildings are in Southwest Roanoke; one is in Northwest. One building is for women; the other four are for men.
The five buildings have a combined 43 units; 15 are occupied.
Pat Reynolds, who manages the five buildings through TAP's human resources department, said the buildings can provide transitional or permanent housing.
Residents ``can stay here permanently, or they can stay here until they get situated,'' she said. ``Most of these people don't have anywhere to live. They have no permanent address and move around from program to program, transient places, hotels or motels or move in with family.
``This is their own place. They can call this home.''
The SRO project is one of few of its kind in the country.
Pulling it together was no easy feat. It took six years of system manipulating, bureaucracy blasting and creative financing to complete.
Funding for the $1.3 million project came in part from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, a TAP energy loan and the city of Roanoke.
A construction loan was secured through the Nations Housing Fund, created by NationsBank and the Enterprise Social Investment Corp., a subsidiary of nationally known developer James Rouse's Enterprise Foundation.
``We were tested like you would not believe in terms of funding ability, research ability and brainstorming and pulling people together,'' said Alvin Nash, TAP's director of housing and executive director of the Blue Ridge Housing Development Corp., which oversaw project development with TAP.
Ted Edlich, TAP president, called the project a ``tremendous accomplishment.''
``We are making a contribution besides volume of housing for people who would be homeless,'' he said. ``One of the things that is going to strengthen Roanoke's neighborhoods is upgrade of housing, particularly rental property.
``SROs demonstrate what we have always advocated.''
by CNB