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SoCalDem

(103,856 posts)
Fri Nov 30, 2012, 04:51 PM Nov 2012

Former prison to become site for homeless vets

Former prison to become site for homeless vets

Updated: 11/29/2012 02:51:50 PM MST
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_22090072/former-prison-become-site-homeless-vets

By KRISTEN WYATT Associated Press
DENVER—An aging former prison in southeast Colorado is unusable for many purposes and should be turned into transitional housing for the chronically homeless, state budget-writers were told Thursday.

The governor's office is asking for $840,000—and an additional $6 million or so over the next two fiscal years—to repurpose the former Fort Lyon Correctional Facility in Las Animas. The prison was closed last year because of a declining prison population. The fences are down at the century-old facility, but officials have struggled for two years to find a new life for Fort Lyon. The former Veterans Affairs hospital was a major employer in rural Bent County, and lawmakers were told that the federal government won't take Fort Lyon back and that the aging property shouldn't be just boarded up and abandoned.

"We have a facility that is going to be expensive even if we mothball it," said Roxane White, chief of staff to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.



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