Veterans’ Home moving forward, behavioral health jobs go vacant

Date: 6/26/2023

SPRINGFIELD — State Sen. John Velis (D-Westfield) said now that the state has its full funding in place, the start of the work to construct a new Veterans’ Home in Holyoke, formerly known as the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, is in the foreseeable future.

“We fully anticipate that building is going to start this summer,” Velis said on a recent edition of “Government Matters” on Focus Springfield. Velis, who has served in Afghanistan in the Army, has been in the forefront advocating for veterans in the commonwealth.

The first step would be to replace the Domicile building also known as “The Dom,” he explained.

In 2021, the state passed a $600 million bond bill with $400 million going to the construction of a new Veterans’ Home in Holyoke, he said. The “vast majority” of the federal money for the project was received just several weeks ago, he added.

“That was the last piece we were waiting for,” Velis noted.

He said the project will involve keeping the residents at the facility by building the new home in stages. Because of the “skyrocketing” construction costs and on-going supply chain issues, Velis expressed reluctance about estimating a timeline for the construction of the building. He believes building the new Home will be a two-to-three-year process.

Velis expressed satisfaction with the legislation crafted at the tragedy at the Home that would prevent such a situation from happening again. He noted both the Senate and House created its own bill and he believes the bill that emerged from the conference committee preserved the “essential elements” that are vital to the veterans’ safety in the future.

Specifically, the chain of command was clarified by the bill. He said the chain of command was “absolutely broken” in 2020, which created serious problems. The legislation created the Executive Office of Veterans’ Services and a new cabinet position. He said now there is a “straight line” from Jon Santiago, the secretary of the department, to the governor’s office.

Velis is the chair of the Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery Committee in the Senate and he said there is a surplus of jobs and not enough people to fill them in Massachusetts. “To me it is the number one question right now,” he said.

He recounted a recent visit to Westfield State University and met with students interested in being front-line health care workers. When asking the group to raise their hands if they are considering going into behavioral health “not a single hand went up.” When he asked if they would consider going into the field if the state would offer loan reimbursements and other incentives, “every hand went up.”

The coronavirus pandemic expediated many retirements in the field and Velis believes not enough students have been told about the openings and the education required for them.

He believes the commonwealth needs to create a “pipeline” reaches out to students to consider going into the field. He explained the commonwealth created a state-wide commission, the Behavioral Trust Fund, with $200 million of ARPA funds for loan reimbursements and scholarships.

The lack of trained professionals makes a greater impact on recovery programs than whether there are enough beds, Velis said. He emphasized it doesn’t matter if additional treatment beds become available unless there is the increase in staff.

He said Senate President Karen Spilka (D-Ashland) wants to revisit this issue as Velis said, “Two hundred million dollars barely scratches the surface.”

His committee is also concerned with the ongoing addiction crisis — opioid addiction that develops into heroin addiction — as well as the newest threat which is the contamination of drugs with fentanyl.

“You cannot do any substance today at all … a big problem we’re having with kids is social media buying pills that they think are being advertised as a certain substance but in fact they have fentanyl in them. Unless you get a pill at CVS or Walgreen’s you can assume it has fentanyl in them. The contamination and adulteration of the drug supply us making it more and more deadly — 100 times stronger than heroin than morphine. People are overdosing left and right,” Velis said.

There is a movement in the Senate to bring back “happy hours” as an economic development issue and Velis is not a supporter, calling alcohol a “forgotten conversation in the addiction fight.” He believes alcohol use disorder is the “number one driver of causing pain and misery in the world today.”

He believes there are other ways of helping small businesses that serve alcohol other than happy hour.