September 19, 2011 - Since the Navy shuttered its base in North Charleston, more than 2,000 homeless veterans have lived there, rent-free, as they battled drug and alcohol addiction and tried to repair their lives.They resided in the "Veterans Villas," a series of neat brick ranch homes along Manley Avenue first built for naval officers and their families.
Now that this property is owned by S.C. Public Railways, the few dozen veterans there are preparing to move.
The Chesapeake Health Education Program, which has run the villas since 1998, originally got access to the properties through the McKinney Act — a federal law that addressed homelessness in part by giving agencies that serve the homeless free access to surplus federal property.
That act no longer applies now that the base property has changed hands.
The Noisette Co. had allowed Chesapeake to continue to occupy the homes at no cost — the nonprofit pays insurance and maintenance costs — but when the Public Railways acquired the property last year after Noisette's foreclosure, things began to change.
Melissa Kelly, director of the nonprofit program, said the state wanted Chesapeake to sign a lease that would have cost several thousand dollars. read more>>>
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