Commission proposes 60-day wait for veterans transitional home in La Crosse

Plans for a new veterans transitional home in a La Crosse neighborhood could be put on hold for a couple of months.

At a meeting Monday, the city plan commission recommended waiting until December to approve a conditional use permit for a VA-operated house on Farnam Street.

Dave and Barb Erickson are donating their large house to the city for the facility. But one neighbor calls it a case of one family making a decision that affects the whole neighborhood.

Other neighbors are worried about whether their children will be safe with the veterans’ house nearby and whether property values will go down.

Gary Padesky represents that area on the city council and said at the meeting he would normally support the proposal, except for one detail.

“If it was drugs and alcohol, and they were at the later stages, then I would be talking to the group here and saying, ‘Please, give it a chance,'” Padesky said. “Where the concerns come in to me, where I’ve changed my mind on this the more I’ve heard about it, is the fact that it’s anger issues.”

City council member David Marshall spent many years in the military, and, at the meeting, asked neighbors to put aside their fears.

“I can tell you what they need is normalcy,” Marshall said. “They need to feel a sense of belonging. They need a sense of being a part of something that’s bigger than themselves.”

The permit request will be discussed again Tuesday night at a city council committee meeting.

The plan commission is asking the council to delay passage of a permit for 60 days, so more research can be done on the VA request.

Sharon Hampson, county supervisor for that district, supports the VA proposal.

“There are halfway houses, there are foster homes, there are many different kinds of helping places, that help people recover and get back into the world,” Hampson said. “And, for the most part, you don’t notice those, because they’re well run.”