TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — “Hopefully I get a voucher so I can move somewhere that will be permanent. At best this is temporary relief from permanent stress,” said Army Veteran Michael Colson.
Colson is one of many residents at Tallahassee’s Veteran Village, a temporary transitional housing program designed to get veterans off the streets and on the road to independence.
“When they come through these programs, and they come through them successfully, where do they go? Housing, affordable housing, workforce housing is a huge crisis,” said Shawn Noles, Director of Veterans Services for Volunteers of America.
The Big Bend Homeless Coalition who owns another veteran housing complex, Homefront, is looking to purchase or lease the land from the City of Tallahassee to convert the 4.54 plot into an estimated 60 to 94 housing unit for formally homeless veterans. The property sits on Capital Circle northwest.
BBHC’s goal is to help bring the number of homeless veterans to zero.
“That’s the number one condition that should be addressed. More permanent housing,” said Colson.
The Tallahassee Veterans Village currently houses 52 veterans who were or at risk of being homeless. That's not even half of the reported number that the Supportive Services for Veteran Families discovered back in 2022 with 190 veterans currently without housing.
Air Force Veteran Shawn Noles is the director of Veterans Services for Volunteers of America and currently runs Tallahassee’s Veteran Village.
“There’s nowhere for them to go, no place for them to afford with their job, their salary, their pension or the disability that they receive," said Noles.
