Housing America’s Veterans

Housing America's Veterans

The main building at the Northwestern Branch of the National Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Designed by architect Edward Townsend Mix, the building hosted a dining room, medical facilities, and dormitory-style rooms for residents. The building has been renovated into 101 units of supportive housing for veterans and their families who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. Photo credit: James Steakley, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

In his second inaugural address, President Lincoln articulated the nation's sacred responsibility to its veterans: "to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan." That mission has taken various forms since the nation's founding and has long included a housing component. At the end of the Civil War, the creation of a system of old soldiers' homes in 1865 — officially named National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in 1873 — inaugurated a systematic, nationwide effort to ensure housing and health care for veterans. That system has evolved considerably over the years into modern programs that include housing vouchers for veterans, low-income housing tax credit properties with veteran set-asides, and efforts to assist veterans experiencing homelessness. 

The Civil War and the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

The origin of the federal role in housing America's veterans precedes the Civil War, when Congress established the U.S. Naval Asylum in Philadelphia in 1811. In 1851, Congress created what would become the U.S. Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C., with additional branches operating in the 1850s in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky. These facilities were open to veterans of regular military forces, and each could house up to 300 people.

During the Civil War (1861 to 1865), local groups aided veterans in many major cities, and the United States Sanitary Commission operated temporary soldiers' homes. By the war's conclusion, the sheer scale of the conflict was laid bare in the 275,000 Union wounded and 1.9 million veterans left in its wake — a staggering number considering that, according to the 1870 census, the total U.S. population was slightly less than 39 million people. In 1865, President Lincoln signed an act creating the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (the word "Home" replaced "Asylum" in 1873). The National Home system was implemented to ensure that veterans received care and housing if they became disabled or could not support themselves on their pensions alone. Over time, the mission would grow and evolve as the needs of America's veterans changed.

The first three branches of the National Home opened in Togus, Maine (1866); Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1867); and Dayton, Ohio (1867). By 1929, when the National Home system acquired the New York State Soldiers' and Sailors' Home in Bath, New York, to serve World War I veterans, the system had grown to 11 branches in operation. Unlike the pre-Civil War facilities, the National Home system could house tens of thousands of veterans.

At first, the homes functioned much like a shelter, with an organization and daily rhythm that mimicked life in the army. Over time, the homes' focus shifted from merely providing shelter toward a less institutional approach, adding recreation and leisure activities. National Home campuses featured libraries, chapels, and theaters. Accommodations were barracks-style, with meals taken in dining halls. Some sites even had parks or zoos and adopted a campus model set in peaceful, rural landscapes whose idyllic qualities and distance from urban vices were considered integral to the well-being of residents. As the board of managers explained, "[T]he Home is neither a hospital nor alms-house, but a home, where subsistence, quarters, clothing, religious instruction, employment when possible, and amusements are provided by the Government of the United States. The provision is not a charity, but is a reward to the brave and deserving." To that end, most of the campuses had farms where residents could earn money, with the food grown helping to feed the residents. Some branches hosted a shoe factory or a printing press where residents could earn a wage. Of course, work also had a therapeutic benefit, argued the board, helping veterans move past the traumas of war and rekindle "interest and ambition and assist to restore a lost or weakened function either mental or physical."

Maine, Wisconsin, Ohio: The Founding Three

The first National Home branch opened in Togus, Maine, in 1866, when the National Home board of managers acquired a bankrupt resort 5 miles outside of the city of Augusta and converted it into the first federally run home for disabled Union soldiers. Repurposing an existing facility allowed the branch to open quickly. This facility, known as the Eastern Branch, was the first in the world dedicated to providing civilian medical care to veterans of temporary volunteer forces (rather than veterans of the regular army). After a fire destroyed the resort buildings in 1868, the campus was reconstructed with purpose-built structures that included three dormitories, an amusement hall, a barn, workshop, and an administrative building.

In Milwaukee, prominent local architect Edward Townsend Mix designed a five-story Victorian Gothic building to house all the functions of the Northwestern Branch, including a dining room, pharmacy, medical facilities, and dormitory-style rooms with communal areas. Sited on a high point of the grounds, the facility featured architecture and landscape design intended to be a source of pride for the veteran residents. 

The Central Branch, as the Dayton location was known, was the first decentralized campus, with streets arranged in a grid and with surrounding parks and gardens designed in the Picturesque style, with extensive curvilinear walking paths. This arrangement would become the standard layout for later National Home branches as well as veterans' hospitals. Campus buildings built in the 19th century included an Italianate-style recreation building, the Flemish-style Putnam Library, a Renaissance Revival-style clubhouse, and two Gothic Revival-style chapels. The Central Branch was the largest of the three, with grounds hosting lakes, rock gardens, a greenhouse, a conservatory, parade grounds, a grotto, an alligator pond, and a zoo.

The Legacy of the National Home System

The National Home annual report for 1900 showed that the system had cared for 102,722 veterans since the first branch opened its doors. Change eventually came to the system of care, as World War I led to a surge of young veterans and a shift in their needs, with medical care taking priority. This shift led National Home branches to transition their facilities into hospitals and other medical facilities, prefiguring the focus of today's U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which was created in 1930 as the Veterans Administration and assumed administration of the National Home system.

Even as the system and methods of care evolved, many of the Old Soldiers' Homes continue to serve America's veterans. The U.S. Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C., for example, serves as a treatment facility and retirement community called the Armed Forces Retirement Home, with a sister facility serving naval veterans in Gulfport, Mississippi. The old Eastern Branch facility in Togus, Maine, is now home to a VA medical center, a regional VA office, a national cemetery, and nursing home facility able to provide long-term care for veterans with Alzheimer's disease or dementia. The Milwaukee Soldiers' Home once again is serving America's veterans, having been renovated into 101 units of housing for veterans and their families who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. The Milwaukee Solders' Home preservation project was a public-private partnership funded through federal low-income housing tax credits, state and federal historic tax credits, military and corporate foundation funding, preservation groups, and a public fundraising campaign, among other sources.

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