Success Story Sunday: The Howard House

This week’s success story highlights the positive work Peabody Properties, Windover Construction, and Affordable Housing and Services Collaborative Inc. are doing for the Howard House in Brockton.

Located on the Brockton VA Medical Center campus, the Howard Home for Aged Men was constructed in 1924 to serve the local elderly population of Brockton. It was funded through a provision of the will of Horace W. Howard, who died in 1913 and left funds to establish and erect a home for aged men in Brockton. The Georgian Revival style building was designed by Ralph D. Jackson of Brockton. In the 1930’s the land adjacent to the Howard Home was used for a new VA hospital. The hospital complex was intended to serve World War II veterans and was built to the designs of in-house VA architects.

Now, The historic Howard House is undergoing a $7 million renovation to provide housing for homeless veterans, creating 14 furnished efficiency apartments and community and program office space. “It’s proven to be a very effective type of housing and it has been largely missing from the continuum of options for homeless vets, so we are very excited about it,” said Betsy Collins, project manager for Peabody Properties. The future tenants will pay 30 percent of their income in rent through federal rental subsidies provided by the Brockton Housing Authority.

“It’s incredibly exciting,” said Peter Gourdeau, project executive for Windover, “because it’s a chance to build an interesting historic renovation project while also doing tremendous good for a very deserving group of people.”

“This National Register listed property might easily have been lost but not only is it being restored, it is filling a need for our homeless veterans,” said Jim Igoe, President of Preservation Massachusetts. Thank you to all the teams collaborating on the Howard House renovation. This project, which is expected to be completed in the Spring of 2016, is not only contributing to successful preservation around our Commonwealth, but to compassionate initiatives for those who have served our Nation as well.