VETERANS
PORT ST. LUCIE
GETS VETS HOME
Although a design for the new Ardie R. Copas State Veterans’ Nursing Home in Port St. Lucie is still in the planning stages, this is what the Clyde E. Lassen
State Veterans’ Nursing Home in St. Augustine looked like from the air a few months before it opened.
Skilled nursing facility will serve veterans
in a 75-mile radius
When Jim David started helping his wife look for
a veterans nursing home for her father, he had
no choice but to send out inquiries to Pembroke
Pines, Daytona Beach, Port Charlotte and St.
Augustine, locations that are from 11/2 to three hours from
their home in St. Lucie County.
The nearest state veterans’ nursing homes are Pembroke
Pines, 100 miles away, and Daytona Beach, 45 miles farther.
But for many who live on the Treasure Coast, those searches
will be a thing of the past when the Ardie R. Copas State
Veterans’ Nursing Home opens its doors in southwestern
VA
Port St. Lucie. Instead of traveling for hours, families will be
looking just down the road at the new $35 million nursing
home on Southwest Tradition Parkway in Tradition.
“My father-in-law is in assisted living now and we would
transfer him if it were open now,” David said. “If you are elderly
yourself, and your parent is in a nursing home far away
and you have to drive that long distance to see your parent
it is a real hardship and it can be very hard for some people
to be able to do that. Having their parent 20 minutes away
would lift a great weight off their families.”
Dan Depagnier, chairman of United Veterans of St. Lucie
8 Port St. Lucie Magazine
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BY SUSAN BURGESS