After half a century of grievances, veterans’ housing demands on West L.A. VA campus go to trial
After months of hearings, a federal judge ruled in May that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs discriminates against homeless veterans whose disability compensation makes them ineligible for housing being constructed on its West Los Angeles campus.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter had earlier found that the VA has a fiduciary duty to use the 388-acre campus primarily for housing and healthcare for disabled veterans, casting doubt on the legality of leases that have turned over portions of it for sports facilities, oil drilling and two parking lots.
Neither ruling, however, gave any indication of what remedies, if any, the VA might face. That question will be at issue in a non-jury trial starting Tuesday in downtown federal court, the culmination of more than a decade of legal battles — and half a century of grievances — over the veterans’ land.
In a brief filed last month, attorneys for the veterans asked Carter to issue an order requiring the VA to provide nearly 4,000 units of permanent supportive housing on the campus. That would be an addition of 2,740 units to the 1,215 already in planning or under construction under the terms of a prior lawsuit. They also are asking for the construction of 1,000 shelter beds.
They further ask the judge to enjoin the VA from contracting with developers whose funding sources impose restrictive income limits that bar veterans with disability compensation. If granted, such an order could have a national impact on VA housing construction that relies on third-party developers.
The brief is less specific about the leases to UCLA and the neighboring Brentwood School for athletic facilities and the oil and parking operations. It asks Carter to find the leases invalid but does not say whether they should be nullified or renegotiated to better serve veterans.
Justice Department lawyers representing the VA argue in an opposing brief that Carter should not order more housing or issue an injunction because the remedy sought is unnecessary and unfeasible and would place an undue burden on the VA.
The lawsuit, filed last November by 14 veterans and since made a class action, reprised an earlier lawsuit that challenged the leases and asserted an unmet need for permanent housing. In a 2015 settlement, the VA agreed to develop a master plan for the campus. A draft master plan, completed in 2016, called for 1,200 units of housing on the campus in new and rehabilitated buildings with a commitment to complete more than 770 units by the end of 2022. Only 54 of those units were completed by the deadline, and only 233 are currently open.
The new lawsuit, filed by Public Counsel, the Inner City Law Center and law firms Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP and Robins Kaplan LLP, alleges that the VA has reneged on the settlement agreement.
The plaintiff’s lead counsel, Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, said in a hearing last year that the new case was necessary because he had erred by not demanding court monitoring of the 2015 settlement.
“The phrase ‘homeless veteran’ should be an American oxymoron,” the complaint said. “But this is the cruel truth — the federal government consistently refuses to keep its word and take meaningful actions to bring the abomination of veteran homelessness to an end.”
The controversy over housing dates back to the Vietnam War era.
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The West Los Angeles campus, formally called the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, was established as a home for Civil War veterans on land donated in 1888 by Sen. John P. Jones and his business partner, the socialite and businesswoman Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker, scion of a landowning family going back to the mission era. After World War I, the campus “gradually evolved from institutional housing to medical care that allowed Veterans to reintegrate into civilian society,” according to a history on the VA website.
As many as 4,000 veterans lived on the property in the early 20th century, but the transformation of the campus into a medical center continued after World War II, as advances in battlefield medical care resulted in greater survival rates with more serious injuries. By 1962, the West L.A. VA Medical Center was the largest in the country, with more than 6,000 patients and 4,500 staff.
But in the late 1960s, residential use declined. Then, following the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the Wadsworth Hospital building was judged seismically unsound and demolished. To make room for a temporary hospital during its reconstruction, the roughly 1,000 remaining residents of the Old Soldiers Home were abruptly evicted. Only about half relocated to other VA facilities, and, after the new hospital opened, the old buildings were left to deteriorate.
Carter ruled in December that the 1888 deed of 300 acres dedicated to the “establishment, construction and permanent maintenance of a branch of said National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers” created a charitable trust and that Congress, in adopting the West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016, assumed enforceable fiduciary duties to use the land to benefit veterans.
In May, Carter certified the case as a class action representing all homeless veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injuries who reside in Los Angeles County and a subclass of all class members whose income (including veterans’ disability benefits) exceeds 50% of the area’s median income.
Last month, Carter issued a partial summary judgment in favor of the veterans, finding that the VA discriminates against veterans whose disability compensation makes them ineligible for housing built by developers whose funding sources come with income limits.
“Those who gave the most cannot receive the least,” he wrote.
In the pretrial brief, Rosenbaum argued that the lack of adequate housing at the VA forces veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injury toward institutionalization.
“Homeless veterans with serious mental illness and traumatic brain injury who lack permanent supportive housing experience an institutional circuit of temporary housing, emergency departments, psychiatric institutions, and jails in order to receive healthcare, including mental healthcare, services,” he wrote.
To support their case for more housing, the plaintiffs intend to present testimony from three prominent Angelenos. Developer and former Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff will testify that he has identified space on the campus for an additional 4,000 units. Jonathan Sherin, former director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and Benjamin Henwood, director of the Center for Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity Research at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, will testify on the mental health impacts of homelessness.
The government’s opposing brief argued that the 2022 update of the master plan provides for a “supportive, integrated community” with services, amenities and recreational, cultural and open spaces.
The plaintiffs’ demand would impose an undue burden, the government argued, by requiring the VA to build approximately 40 buildings, to obtain a new environmental report clearances for historic preservation and to extend utilities into new areas of the campus.
It cited several improvements the VA has made to its services and changes to the income requirements that make 97% of homeless veterans eligible for federal housing vouchers.
It also argued that housing a majority of veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injury on the campus would “segregate them from the broader community and would likely result in their stigmatization based on their disabilities.”
Carter has not yet ruled on the validity of the leases, which reserve limited time for veterans to use the athletic facilities and generate income from the oil and parking operations for VA operations.
Rosenbaum cited a 2021 report by the VA’s Office of Inspector General concluding that seven of the VA’s land-use leases, including those with the Brentwood School and the oil and parking operators, failed to comply with the West Los Angeles Leasing Act and that seven and a half years after the earlier settlement, no supportive housing had yet been completed.
Lawyers representing Bridgeland Resources LLC intervened in the case and filed a brief in which they argue that the 2017 lease under which the company uses a portion of the VA property to slant drill into a West Los Angeles oil field complies with the West Los Angeles Leasing Act because it provides a 2.5% royalty to the Disabled American Veterans Los Angeles Chapter “solely for the purpose of providing transportation to Veterans on and around the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System Campus.” If that lease were invalidated, they said, earlier leases would then take effect, allowing Bridgeland to expand its operation.
Rosenbaum said those earlier leases also would be invalid.
Neither UCLA nor the Brentwood School has had lawyers present or sought to intervene. Spokespeople for UCLA and the Brentwood School declined to comment.
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this article.
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