TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (KRQE) – After an outcry about New Mexico’s crumbling veterans’ home, the state built a brand new facility in Truth or Consequences, and the veterans are settling in. For the first time since its ribbon cutting ceremony nearly a year ago, the public is getting a firsthand look at the small home community there.
“This is T or C’s Veterans Home. We call it the cottages, or small homes,” says Kenneth Shull, administrator of the New Mexico State Veterans’ Home, and a retired Brigadier General for the Army.
Nestled in the shadow of Turtleback Mountain in Truth or Consequences, the New Mexico State Veterans’ Home is debuting a new sort of community for our country’s servicemen and women.
“Right now, we have 100 veterans, about 100, 101. We’re admitting about 2 a week,” Shull says. “This is the gem of all the state veterans’ homes throughout this [country] and this is the model that the VA is looking to promote throughout the United States.”
It wasn’t always this way. The previous facility was the subject of a scathing inspection report in 2021, outlining serious structural problems and substandard conditions inside the building which had not been updated in decades.
For the new facility, the model is a community of small homes – six in all – housing between six to 12 veterans per residence. “Wow! It was, ‘Wow!’ And, it’s still, ‘wow,'” says Jenny Sidri, resident of one of the new small homes and an Army veteran.
The first of the homes opened in August, and veterans who live there now tell News 13 they’re happy with their new space. “In the other facility, you would have two or three or four roommates. I have my own private room, with my own toilet and, blessed be God, shower,” says George Charles Gray, resident in one of the small homes and an Army veteran.
“We have a most excellent kitchen staff that takes individual orders,” Gray says. “I am totally happy with the new facility.”
“It’s spacious, it’s big! And I can look out the windows!” Sidri says, “It’s the cat’s meow! Wow! Wow! That they’ve created this is wonderful.”
Administrators say the goal was to make these facilities as home-like as possible, allowing spouses and Gold Star parents to live there and have accommodations for different needs. “We’re being treated like human beings,” Gray says.
Currently about 75% full, officials say they plan to have these small homes at capacity by February. “They served the country, they gave the biggest sacrifice, and also their families did as well. So, this is a way to give back to the veterans and say, ‘Look, you deserve this,'” Shull says.
The facility cost $60 million to build from state funding; money secured from the legislature in 2022.
