Coming off the heels of a visit to the imminently-closing North Carolina State Veterans Home in Fayetteville, North Carolina legislators on Tuesday criticized the N.C. Dept. of Military and Veteran Affairs (DMVA) for its handling of the facility’s closure and relocation of the veterans who called it home.
At a meeting in Raleigh of the North Carolina General Assembly’s Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Government, committee members — who had toured the state veterans home on Jan. 27 — shared their concerns with DMVA representatives.
During a discussion lasting over an hour, several legislators emphasized their dissatisfaction with the DMVA’s lack of communication with them and the circumstances leading up to the closing.
“I'm very dismayed in some of the things that have transpired over this time,” State Sen. W. Ted Alexander (R-Dist. 44), who is also a committee co-chair, said. “And I'll just be upfront about that.”
Brian Pierce, deputy secretary of the DMVA, gave a presentation at the committee meeting prior to fielding questions from legislators, during which he said three of the initial 85 residents remained at the state veterans home. Two were scheduled to depart Wednesday, Pierce said. The last resident did not have relocation plans yet, but was currently discussing options with his lawyers and DMVA staff, Pierce said.
The veterans living at the home, their families and employees of the facility were given just over two months to find new accommodations, after the DMVA told them on Nov. 21 it would be closing the facility and building a new one. The DMVA has cited “significant repair needs and structural deficiencies” to the building, as well as issues with the water intrusion, that had “no immediate solution or long-term fix.”
Committee members said they were left out of the agency’s decision-making process, including evaluations and assessments that precipitated the DMVA’s decision to abandon the home entirely — information conveyed in the first public announcement of the shutdown on Dec. 14.
“The way I found out about the home closing was I was here in Raleigh and I was watching the news,” State Sen. Carl Ford (R-Dist.33) said. “That's how I found out about it. And then my phone started ringing. And so I'd like to have a little better communication on that going forward.”
Pierce acknowledged that the final decision to close the home did not involve legislators, and it was made in a “collaborative process” including DMVA leadership, the task force for the state veterans homes and PruittHealth, which is contracted to run the state veterans homes.
Pierce said the DMVA notified legislators of the decision just before residents of the veterans home were notified, with a message sent to leadership of the General Assembly on Nov. 17 and an email sent to all members of the General Assembly on Nov. 22.
Several committee members also questioned the agency’s accountability over the shutdown of the building, which started being constructed in 1996 and was opened in 1999; the DMVA has been aware of structural issues with the building since 2020, according to answers provided by Pierce during the meeting.
“That building should last at least 50 years, and somebody has to take responsibility for this thing,” State Sen. Dean Proctor (R-Dist.45), who also serves as vice chair of the committee, said. “And we can talk about it all day, but nobody’s said really what happened. Why is it not in livable condition now? I think that's just poor management somewhere.”
Alexander took issue with DMVA Secretary Lt. Gen. Walter Gaskin not being present at the meeting to answer their questions.
“And I just want [to say] that, for the record, I feel very disappointed that the secretary was not here to answer a lot of those questions,” Alexander said.
In an email response to CityView Tuesday evening, Tammy Martin, the DMVA director of communications, did not address why Gaskin was not at the meeting.
“Deputy Sec. Brian Pierce is leading the Task Force and the day-to-day operations of the relocation,” Martin wrote in response to the question. “He is also a retired Colonel.”
After receiving feedback and fielding dozens of questions from the legislators, Pierce seemed to contradict the DMVA’s initial conclusion that there was “no immediate solution or long-term fix” to the building’s structural issues.
During discussion, N.C. House Rep. Edward asked, “My question is, does anybody know whether or not this can be fixed, or are we ready to throw our hands up?”
“We’re obviously not ready to throw up our hands,” Pierce responded.
“We're relying from the department on the subject matter experts to determine what that is,” he continued, “... We're focused on taking care of our veteran residents, and what becomes of the building is something that, like the chairman just said, we can focus on in the future.”
Committee members Brody, Alexander, Proctor, State House Rep. Dennis Riddell (R-Dist. 64), who is the committee’s chair, said they were hesitant to make snap judgments about the building’s future and wanted more information about evaluations and assessments the DMVA had used to make its decision.
“Just keep us in the information loop — that's our primary interest right now,” Riddell said. “We've got time to make a decision, it doesn't have to be made tomorrow. So we would like to get as much information in hand as possible as we go forward.”
State House Rep. Edward Goodwin (R-Dist.1), who joined in the committee’s visit to the state veterans home in Fayetteville on Jan. 26, said he would like to explore repair options for the building, and his “first choice would not be [to] tear it down.”
“I hate to see the thing just go away because we do not have enough smart people and the wherewithal to figure that out for soldiers who risked their tails — and I talked to several of them in there that were missing limbs, and were disabled, and I'm one of them,” said Goodwin, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1972-76. “And I was mad all the way back to Edenton for what I saw that day. We have better people than this.”
Committee members on Tuesday also strongly encouraged the DMVA to immediately follow up with veterans who had relocated from the facility. The committee is planning to have a follow-up meeting after gathering more information from the DMVA to further discuss issues related to the state veterans home in Fayetteville. The follow-up meeting date has not yet been announced.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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