Purple Heart Homes – Helping Disabled Vets

Article Originally Published by: Lincoln Herald,
Reporter: Wayne Howard

Purple Heart Homes (www.phhusa.org) has announced plans to recognize its 10th anniversary in 2018 by launching a partnership with Bronze Star Builders to construct custom designed modular additions. Purple Heart Homes’ mission is to provide housing solutions for Service Connected Disabled Veterans which range from renovating homes to meet the needs of physically disabled veterans to helping disabled veterans obtain the dream of home ownership.

All of Purple Heart Homes’ projects include adapting homes to ensure accessibility and sustainability, enabling veterans of all ages and eras to live and age safely in place. During its’ first nine years, Purple Heart Homes completed more than 300 projects in 30 states across the nation, helping hundreds of Service Connected Disabled Veterans, as well as their caregivers and families, remain comfortably in their own homes.

Three of the new homes for Service Connected Disabled Vets made possible by Purple Heart Homes are just off Highway 16-Business in Denver. John Gallina and Dale Beatty, the founders of Purple Heart Homes, were both wounded in Iraq and when they came home, had the full support of their communities. They realized that this was not the case for all veterans. Knowing the difficulties that some had faced and others would face, they founded Purple Heart Homes in 2008. The organization completed its first project in 2010 and the number of projects has grown consecutively during each year since. In 2017, Purple Heart Homes impacted the lives of 156 Service Connected Disabled Veterans and their families by providing much needed home modifications to meet their specific needs, as well as two more families who were able to obtain homes with the help of Purple Heart Homes.

In 2016, there were more than four million Service Connected Disabled Veterans living in the United States. With 10 chapters in eight states, Purple Heart Homes is working to help as many of these veterans as possible moving forward into 2018 and future years. Each of these projects have been, and will continue to be, accomplished by Purple Heart Homes with the generosity, participation and assistance of the recipient veterans’ community volunteers, organizations, individual donors, and corporate partners.

In addition to the announcement of the partnership with Bronze Star Builders, Purple Heart Homes has numerous events planned for its 10-year anniversary. These upcoming events will all focus on assisting Service Connected Disabled Veterans, increasing funding, attracting more volunteers and obtaining new partners to support ongoing projects.

“There’s been a lot of talk about homeless veterans,” Gallina told the Lincoln Herald recently. “Those we’re most interested in helping are the service disabled vets who may be living just above the poverty line. They don’t qualify for some government programs, yet they have difficulty scraping by.

“The vet who moves into this home [we were talking with John as the latest home in Denver was being completed] will have the opportunity to own a nice home, but will have to make an investment, too. If the vet and family live in this home for at least five years and make their mortgage payments, pay their taxes, etc., they’ll get 50% of the value of the home as a gift. It’s not just giving them a home; it’s making it possible for them to own one.”

About Purple Heart Homes:

Purple Heart Homes is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded by Dale Beatty and John Gallina, two Iraq combat wounded veterans who remain on a mission to provide housing solutions for Service Connected Disabled Veterans that are substantial in function, design and quality. Purple Heart Homes has two programs: Veterans Aging in Place (VAIP), which encompasses the Operation Veterans Home Renovation Project (OVHR), and The Veterans Home Ownership Program (VHOP). From building a ramp for wheelchair-bound veterans to providing home ownership opportunities to veterans with physical as well as invisible injuries, Purple Heart Homes’ programs are designed out of necessity and fit the specific needs of veterans of all ages and from all eras, helping them to live and age in place, in their own safe, accessible and sustainable homes. For more information, visit www.phhusa.org. Purple Heart Homes – Improving Veterans Lives One Home at a Time.