The push to build a nursing home in northern Utah to serve the state's approximately 160,000 military veterans has been rekindled with a lawmaker's bill to find state funding for the estimated $19 million project.

With the promise of federal funding not materializing fast enough and construction costs rising, Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, is tired of waiting.

"They keep telling us federal funds are going to be available," Dee said this week in an interview. "We're not moving up the list very fast."

Dee recently filed a bill request with the working title, "Funding Veterans Administration Hospital."

The process of selling the Legislature on funding the nursing home, to be built in Ogden, is a road Dee and others have been down before.

In 2005, state lawmakers came up with a $4.5 million bond plan for the home, but that's been on hold because the federal government hasn't come through with its share of the cost. And after the 2007 session, ripe with a surplus of state money, those pounding the pavement for the project came up empty-handed for more money.

As for Fasi Filiaga, a disabled Vietnam veteran who has lived in Ogden for 26 years, he's fed up with driving back and forth to Salt Lake City to the VA hospital for his health-care needs. But he's married, so he considers himself more fortunate than the vets he knows who need help but have a harder time getting it.

"I feel sorry for my other friends, my veterans next door to me," said Filiaga, a Purple Heart recipient who relies on a wheelchair for mobility. "Each time I see them, it breaks my heart."

Utah Department of Veterans Affairs director Terry Schow is hopeful Dee's new bill will at least carve out enough state funding to get the estimated $1.5 million design process moving. The modus operandi for key supporters of the home is to see the state fund it in the short term with the idea that the feds will kick in their share sooner rather than later.

"In my view, it's one of the very top issues for us," Schow said. "The need is tremendous."

Currently there are 80 nursing home beds in use by veterans on the campus of the VA hospital in Salt Lake City, drawing vets from all over the state. Schow said the VA at the federal level has identified a need in Utah for 300 beds. The home in Ogden would add 120 beds to the state's total.

Lisa Roskelley, spokeswoman for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., said the governor has talked to Schow about "making sure veterans are receiving the benefits they deserve and are entitled to.

"The nursing home may be one way to further that goal," she said.

Schow noted that Congress appears poised for next year to more than double its current funding for the "State Home Grant" program. That money would go toward the federal government's responsibility to pay for two-thirds of the cost of new nursing homes for veterans, with states picking the remaining tab.

Schow also said construction of the home would create jobs, while the finished product would take financial strain off families forced to fill in where state and federal resources fall short. Schow said at least 50,000 veterans live in the northern Utah area.

But Schow and Dee are aware the list is long of states in need of nursing homes for an aging, growing population of veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

"We've asked for some help from Congress," Dee said. "We feel we're ready."

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com