By CALEB FREY

Staff Reporter

RESERVE — Labor issues are posing a problem with the completion of the War Veterans Home on Airline Highway in Reserve, a project expected to be finished by September, which is now on pace for a spring 2007 opening.

A work in process since May 2005, the War Veterans Home was fortunate enough to stave off damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, said Deputy Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture Joey &#8220Big Indian” Strickland.

However, it is increasingly difficult to find people willing to help with the construction, according to Project Superintendent John Bourgeois of Hearn Construction, the company in charge of the home.

&#8220You can’t hire enough help, and we’re short-handed 50-60 people a day,” Bourgeois said. &#8220We’re hoping to be finished in December or the first of January.”

Homer Rodgers of the Department of Veteran Affairs is looking at April 2007

The $17 million home is expected to house nearly 160 veterans and will feature a computer lab, library, an arts and crafts building and a fishing pond sponsored through the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Bourgeois said he and his company are doing everything they can to help finish the project but is not quite certain how to entice enough people to help with the job.

&#8220We’re moving people from across the country to get ‘em here. We’re not just saying, oh, we can’t do anything about it,” Bourgeois said. &#8220But when money doesn’t motivate people, what will?”