Veteran’s Club Incorporated voted as a board to sell the land that was intended to support Camp

Restoration. There were many extenuating circumstances that went into this decision and I will
share those with the public. The biggest hurdle initially into this project was the fact that six days
after we broke ground, the global pandemic shut the world down. This was an event that none of
us could prepare for. Due to the restrictions set out by Government, many of our big fundraising
efforts were canceled. We estimate that this cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds
that would be used in this effort. Additionally, we had only raised a small amount of funds for
this project since the inception and was indicator that we didn’t have the support that we had
hoped for. We continued to try to partner, find investors, and apply for funding with the city and
other agencies because we believed in this mission, and we still do. We applied for the Louisville
Affordable Housing Trust Fund and was not awarded, this surprised us as we were under the
impression that we were fully supported by the city. We were also told by state level housing
corporations that we did not qualify for their programs due to various requirements that the
project did not meet. While we searched for funding, we worked with planning and zoning in
Louisville on aspects of the property in which they were always very helpful. After sitting on this
empty lot for a year and a half and having no luck with funds, we decided to have one more
meeting with city officials and some state legislators to see if we could gain ground. We didn’t
want to quit on this project. Once we had that meeting, Louisville Metro Council started to show
interest and support of this project and looked at ARP funding possibilities if we qualified. After
several budget meetings, we recognized in the meeting minutes posted on the city website that
we weren’t discussed. Our board got back together and made a vote, which was unanimous, to
sell the land back to the donor and use that available funding for our current programs that were
super effective and impactful. This includes the Veterans Village Tiny Home Community we
have in Shelbyville that’s currently up and running successfully. Shortly after this, I scheduled a
meeting to inform Council member Amy Holton Stewart of our decision. At that point the
current events of Afghanistan started to occur and we got really busy as an organization
supporting Veterans who were struggling with mental health because of this. We had many
suicidal calls regarding Afghanistan and as always, we prioritized that over a meeting. I ( Jeremy
Harrell ) always will. Shortly after I connected with Amy Holton Stewart regarding our decision
and we agreed to schedule a Zoom meeting with several Council Members to inform them of the
decision. That meeting never happened as the press relief went out from them before we met. We
did agree to sell this property back to the donor as a courtesy considering he gave it to us for this
project. It was the right thing to do offering it to him first. This does NOT mean that we are
giving up on this project and will revisit when appropriate. Homeless Veterans in Louisville are
welcome and encouraged to apply to our Homeless Veteran Healing and Recovery Community
in Shelbyville as its the same programming that would be offered at Camp Restoration. There is
absolutely no loss of services that we provide homeless Veterans as we are already doing the
work. I also want to be clear that there was NO guarantee that ARP funds would be available for
us and this project. There was no check on the table, in fact we hadn’t even applied for that
funding as an organization yet. So I am not sure where the misconception that there was a
guarantee comes from. That wouldn’t be fair to say for other organizations in need of funding
who have applied. Hypothetically speaking, even if we received funding to cover the building of
the project, the lack of support that we have received so far clearly indicated that we would not
be able to sustain the operations and overhead needed to run it successfully. The donations to
date wouldn’t have covered the average salary of one administrative person for the program. It
would be wasteful and we would not be good steward of the money God provides by building
something only to watch it not be successful. We decided as an organization to focus on the
smaller but just as impactful community in Shelbyville.

Regards,
Jeremy Harrell
Founder / CEO - Veteran’s Club INC
Co-Chair - Veterans Community Alliance of Louisville