Island Park Veterans Village (Tunnel to Towers) 2025

According to Tunnel to Towers Foundation, it has committed to providing long-term supportive housing to our struggling veterans nationwide. Over 35,000 veterans nationwide currently struggle with housing and access to supportive services.

Simply providing housing to veterans is not enough to make a substantial difference in these individual’s lives. In order to effectively rehabilitate and reintegrate our veterans back into society, we must also provide a platform where they have ready access to a wide range of needed services, geared towards diagnosing and solving root causes, and addressing their specific emotional, financial, and physical issues.

On August 20,2025, all the Nassau County Posts of the American Legion plus other organizations were all asked to attend a hearing to help support Tunnel to Towers so that they could build a housing village in the town of Island Park, New York. They had to have the building zoning board’s approval before they could build this project. The meeting was held at the old Town Hall on Front Street, Hempstead, New York, at 2PM. The site in Island Park was the Long Beach Motor Inn, in Island Park.

The turn out was very heavy, most of the people that were in attendance were American Legion members. We told them why the Veteran’s Village was needed, and we spoke clearly and concisely, about both Island Park as well as the Veteran Village, which got standing ovations from the crowd every time someone spoke. No one from the town of Island Park voted against the Veterans housing, they just had some minor questions about traffic lights, and parking availability, which Tunnel to Towers stated, they would keep the residents advised about all those concerns. No one in the meeting room spoke against having the Veterans Village built at the site where the Long Beach Motor Inn once stood as a Zombie building. The Chairperson of the board ruled from the Board at that time, and being everyone was unanimously in agreement, the Tunnel to Towers was granted their permit to build the Veterans Village at the location they requested in Island Park.

James W. O'Neill
Past Post Commander
Post Chaplain