A national nonprofit will renovate an old hotel near Six Flags Over Georgia in Mableton into a “veterans village,” a permanent housing community for veterans facing homelessness — the first of its kind in metro Atlanta.
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a nonprofit aiming to eradicate veteran homelessness, hosted a groundbreaking event this month at the site of the Wingate by Wyndam hotel and invited elected officials, community stakeholders, veterans and other guests to celebrate the veterans village, which will be the second nationwide.
The foundation, with help from the Home Depot Foundation which contributed $500,000 toward the project, will renovate the dilapidated hotel into 92 studio apartments for veterans with on-site support services. It will open in early 2025.
Housing can be a major struggle for veterans, one that if not properly met can contribute to risk of suicide, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Credit: Taylor Croft
Credit: Taylor Croft
“It’s a tremendous problem, obviously, and a tremendous task,” said Gavin Naples, the vice president of Tunnel to Towers Foundation’s homeless veterans program. “To date, we’ve provided housing assistance and supportive services to over 5,000 veterans, and that’s going to exponentially increase as we go.”
Each hotel room will be converted into individual living quarters with a kitchen and bathroom. Communal spaces will include a gym, business center, great room, cafeteria and commercial kitchen. Veterans will also have access to support services, such as case management, job training, health resources, peer support and recreational activities, as well as daily transportation to and from the nearest Veterans Affairs hospital.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Many supportive housing options for veterans are temporary, but the veterans village is designed to be available to veterans for as long as needed, Naples said.
Temporary housing “becomes this sort of perpetual cycle that a veteran struggles to get out — six months here, nine months here,” he said.
Giving veterans as much time and support as they need better helps them to break out of that cycle. The residents will pay rent — 30% of their income, however much that may be — so they are invested in their home but also aren’t facing housing affordability struggles, he added.
The ultimate goal is to help veterans reintegrate into society successfully.
“But if this is a veteran’s last stop, or if they’re an older class of veteran — think Vietnam War veterans that are going to have a little bit more trouble reintegrating because of their age — they can live out their golden years here in comfort and dignity and have access to the services that we provide on site,” Naples said.
Credit: Taylor Croft
Credit: Taylor Croft
The village will be available for honorably discharged, male and female veterans without a history of sexual or major crimes, screened through an application process. But no one who applies to the program will be turned away completely, Naples said. Those who don’t get accepted into the village will be routed to the foundation’s national case management program that will help them obtain housing and access resources in their area.
The hotel had fallen into disrepair and was known to be crime-laden, Cobb Commissioner Monique Sheffield said, so the veterans village will be a welcome improvement for the area. Late last year, the Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a special land-use permit for the project, which she called “a shining example of what we can achieve when we come together with a common purpose.”
“This redevelopment demonstrates how collaborative efforts can create meaningful change and provide stability for some of our most vulnerable members of our community,” Sheffield said. “It’s about more than just redeveloping a building; it’s about building a support environment where our veterans can thrive.”
Credit: Taylor Croft
Credit: Taylor Croft
The first veterans village, also a renovated hotel, opened in Houston, Texas, last year and served over 100 veterans, according to the foundation.
James Robinson is the lead veteran outreach coordinator for the Georgia chapter of the PTSD Foundation of America, which aims to help veterans and their families struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder address their needs and cope with their mental illness. When individuals successfully completed their program in Texas, some moved to the veterans village as an additional step toward reentering society, he said.
“To have somewhere that they can transition into that is fitting of their financial situation, to kind of settle down, reintegrate back into society in a healthy way, it’s great,” he said.
