Day Room Renovation
There is one dayroom per wing, per floor. Each wing can house up to 48 Veterans. Veterans like all people have a wide variety of interests. As you can see from the pictures of the dayroom, it is hard to do more than just watch TV when it is on. You cannot read or concentrate on much else and you cannot make noise that disturbs those watching the TV.
Need for Suggested Changes to Day Room
It is important that all the Veterans can find some activities that they enjoy day to day. Many Veterans here suffer from disorders such as depression, PTSD, mood disorder, explosive anger disorder, depression and isolation. The Legislative Program Review Committee 2016 Report suggested that we needed 12 psychiatric professionals here to care for the Veterans just in the residential area and yet we have none, as the state is broke. Finding new areas and activities would tremendously reduce the stress of many of our Veterans and help them cope better and reduce their symptoms.
Changes We Hope to Implement
We want to divide the rooms in half. This would allow us to make areas for reading or playing cards, making models, etc., as well as, still have the TV rooms. Upgrading the electricity would allow for simple additions such as coffee pots and microwaves in some of the areas to give even more diversity. In order to do this, we would have to separate the ac and heating controls.
The new separating wall would need to sound deadening insulation put in it to reduce conflicts between those using the two rooms. Installing drop ceilings would remove the echoing sounds and would also require dropping the lights and turning the sprinkler heads down and dropping the fire alarm sensors. We would also like to add some reclining chairs and even possibly make the fireplaces work again.
