MAUD, Texas-What once served as a home for state probation inmates working to pay restitution could potentially be given new life as a home for military veterans.
Earlier this month, Catherine Betts, Cass County's chief adult probation officer, spoke at a monthly meeting held by the Texarkana Chapter #278 Vietnam Veterans of America.
Betts told the local VVA that she is presently looking for a way to re-purpose the former Northeast Texas Restitution Center, possibly as a shelter for veterans seeking living quarters with fellow veterans.
The state built the center and opened it in 1999 on a short road which juts off of Farm to Market Road 2624 just south of Maud, Texas. However, after about 12 years, the state's prison system decided to close the center in favor of getting another restitution center in Longview, Texas. Since the state prison system didn't need both centers, officials decided in 2011 to close the one at the Maud in favor of the one in Longview, Betts said.
Since the state had no use for the Maud building, it deeded the structure over to the Cass County Adult Probation Office, Betts, herself a veteran, said. She joined the probation office in 2003 after serving for seven years in the U.S. Air Force.
The 22,000 square-foot building, which as been vacant for the last s3ix years, presently accommodates 16 bedrooms-each with its own bathroom and space for a refrigerator. Three or four more bedrooms can be added giving the building about 20 altogether, Betts said.
Besides the bedrooms, Betts said the center has a large kitchen, two smaller kitchen-break rooms, a laundry room, dining room, meeting room, library, a television room, an outside basketball court, a covered outdoor pavilion and a separate workshop building where the tenants could do woodworking or some other hobby. She added that the pavilion could have outdoor cooking grills installed and that one of the center's classrooms could be turned into an exercise and health room.