Submitted Photo Warren County fourth grade students have provided the art that will hang on the walls of the Allegheny Valley Veterans Center. That art will feature prominently in today’s open house set for 7 p.m.

The Allegheny Valley Veterans Center has started serving veterans in need.

An open house of the facility — the former Allegheny Valley Elementary School in Clarendon — is set for tonight at 7 p.m.

The goal from the outset of the project has been to create a space where the needs of homeless veterans can be served.

AVVC administrator Michael Mclachlan said 20 rooms have been completed.

Thursday’s open house will also include a group of fourth graders who were tasked with crafting the art that will hang in the hallways.

Organizers hope to participate in a Veterans Administration program for homeless veterans but Mclachlan explained that they have to have people staying in the shelter to participate in that program.

As a result, the facility is listed on both 211 and HMIS, a homeless management system. Mclachlan said they’ve also gotten calls from the VA office in Warren and “from all kinds of different people.”

To date, the funds raised to this point are covering the cost for the veterans they are serving.

“We’re not charging nothing right now,” Mclachlan said. “(We are) housing them to get our foot in the door…. We’ve had two already in here.”

He explained they helped one get an apartment and the other medical care.

“We aren’t turning any vets down,” he added. “If they need a place to stay, we are pretty much taking them in.”

The long-term plan is to provide transitional housing for veterans.

This would cover veterans who were homeless when they entered a VA Hospital — Pittsburgh, Erie or Buffalo, for example — and need a place to stay when discharged. Organizers previously said that the VA will pay for these individuals to stay in transitional housing for up to two years.

According to the VA, these spaces offer programs and services that “help homeless veterans find stable housing, gain skills to increase their income and achieve independence.”