The heartening thing is that many organizations around the country aren't waiting around for others to do something about it – they're tackling to problem as best they can. It's a tough situation, but every little bit helps. This school being turned into apartments will only house 12 veterans, which seems like such a small number, but it will mean the world to those 12, and it's a step in the right direction.
To say that Philadelphia's Spring Garden School has seen better days would be an understatement – but thanks to HELP USA, it still has great days ahead, too.
Over the years, the former school has become a popular target for urban explorers and graffiti artists.
Although the school has been shut down for 40 years and textbooks from the '70s still sit on some of the desks, the building has a bright future – as apartments for low-income seniors as well as 12 units specifically for homeless vets.
"It is an incredibly beautiful building," says David Cleghorn, senior vice president of real estate development of Help USA. He says the graffiti is "high-quality street art [that] we will certainly try to salvage as much as we can."
It will be a costly conversion, however, at $13.6 million, largely because the building is on the National Register of Historic Places, so it has to be carefully restored. And, given its age, it will have to have asbestos removed too.
In the end, each classroom in the building will be turned into an apartment.
The conversion marks HELP USA's fifth project in the City of Brotherly Love, showing their commitment to ending homelessness for veterans.
Advertisement
0 comments: