Iowa Veterans Home puts plan to move residents on hold

The commandant of the Iowa Veterans Home has put on hold a plan that called for residents to be temporarily moved from single room to double rooms while living facilities on the Marshalltown campus are updated.

'I heard their concerns,” Commandant Timon Oujiri said Friday after announcing his decision to residents.

The plan called for residential care veterans to be moved out of the 117-year-old Heinz Hall to Sheeler Hall, perhaps as early as September 2018. Whether they would remain there or be moved back to Heinz had not been determined.

Now, each dorm resident has a private room and a shared bathroom. If they were doubled up, four people would share a bathroom.

They voiced their concerns at a town hall meeting in November.

'I understand their concerns,” Oujiri said in a statement. 'The correct decision sometimes is not the right decision. Therefore, I have made a determination to reverse my decision to initiate relocating the residents of Heinz Hall to Sheeler.”

The plan is on hold while the veterans home conducts a compressive plan with resident's participation, Oujiri said.

The Iowa Veterans Home has about 554 residents. It operates on a combination of state and federal funds. Its fiscal 2019 budget request was for $7.59 million.

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