“It’s a national crisis of housing,” Marchelle Berry, vice president of development for VOA, told the Dayton Daily News. “So this is filling the need both for veterans as well as general occupancy for those who are living on the street. It’s a crisis.”
The VA already has an EUL agreement — an “enhanced use lease” — with the VOA. An EUL is an agreement in which an organization or business leases federal property for a government-approved purpose.
Lyons Place II on the Dayton VA campus also has a housing EUL, for 55 units.
As of April, the VA had 56 housing EULs nationally, with more than 3,780 housing units.
“This is not a sale of land,” Robert Brandon, an EUL realty specialist for the VA, said in a public hearing on the units Monday.
The development will take place in a building that has been known as Miller Place or Miller Cottage.
The VOA leases the building today and has a resource center for veterans on its first floor, with housing for veterans on the second floor.
But more is needed.
“The third floor has been sitting vacant for years,” Berry said. “It’s just unused space that could be utilized for a better use, specifically in this case, housing.”
The veterans’ programming on the building’s first floor, and housing on the second, will continue as the new 31 one-bedroom apartments are built, Berry said.
The multi-story brick building, boasting a white-columned portico, started its existence as a barracks for women veterans on the grounds of what was one of the first homes for American veterans, called the Central Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers.
The Dayton VA campus has a history that stretches back to the nation’s efforts to serve veterans of the Civil War.
The VOA expects learn on May 21 if it has won $12.5 million in Ohio low income housing tax credits needed for the project. If awarded, the VOA will sell those credits to build equity for the project.
Berry is hopeful the credits will be secured. “I’m a developer, so I’m always cautiously optimistic,” she said. “So until I hear that day ... I know what is to win by a point, and I know what it is to lose by a point.”
If tax credits are forthcoming, the design and construction timeline begins. Construction work could start in the second quarter of 2026.
Volunteers of America is a national nonprofit, faith-based organization.
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