You have probably heard by now that federal judge David O. Carter has found the VA’s practice of leasing VA land to outside parties for non-veteran purposes to be illegal.
This could be hugely impactful to Brentwood School, which built some fabulous athletic facilities on land Brentwood School leased from the VA. Same for UCLA, whose Jackie Robinson baseball stadium rests on VA property.
Judge Carter also ordered an ambitious ramping up of the number of homeless veteran housing units that need to be built on the property. He is also pushing for much faster progress.
First of all, let me say, it’s about time! Hooray to Judge Carter, who made a similar ruckus with homelessness efforts in Skid Row. For some reason, our elected officials and the agencies that are supposed to tackle homelessness keep falling way short of the mark.
So Judge Carter’s cracking the whip is a good thing.
The Brentwood News has been covering the VA issue for as long as I can recall (we started the Brentwood News in 1991) and the issues facing homeless veterans existed long before we came along. But we’ve been covering the VA since we first arrived on the scene.
But the VA was always a frustrating story to cover because so little progress got made – year after year.
The VA was oddly resistant to committing to providing housing for homeless veterans, even though the VA property was originally deeded over the U.S. government in 1888 specifically for the purpose of providing housing for disabled veterans.
Over time, West LA VA officials came to view their mission as providing medical services. Housing simply wasn’t something the VA wanted to provide.
Year after year, we saw veterans protest this situation. Brentwood residents have been very involved.
Brentwood resident Robert Rosebrock led Sunday protests outside the front gates of the VA, at Wilshire and San Vicente, for years.
Rosebrock got arrested for pinning an upside down U.S. flag to the fence of the VA; the ACLU got the case thrown out, arguing Rosebrock’s First Amendment rights had been violated.
Lawsuits filed by homeless veterans led to a deal in 2015 when Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald agreed with lawyer Ron Olson and local activist Bobby Shriver – representing homeless veterans – that something had to give.
Housing would be provided, according to the settlement, but only to the tune of 1,200 units. There were, at the time of the deal signing, an estimated 4,000 homeless veterans in Greater Los Angeles (this number has since been reduced to an estimated 3,000).
In recent years, several veterans set up an encampment outside the fence of the VA, along San Vicente. Other, non-veterans joined in, and conditions became quite grim. This sidewalk community saw violence, drug use, bicycle thefts (and resales), huge amounts of trash, human waste, and confrontations with local citizens.
One homeless individual living on the San Vicente sidewalk died of a stabbing; another got run over (and killed) by a car, driven by another homeless individual.
The sheriff came in and cleaned up the encampment. Several veterans moved into tiny homes that have been stationed on the VA property.
Brentwood resident Marcie Polier Swartz and her “Village for Vets” organization provide food and other services to veterans on campus; Brentwood resident, actor, and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger donated 25 tiny homes to the cause.
Tom Safran, another Brentwood resident, runs Tom Safran Architects, a company that’s overseeing the buildout of the new permanent housing units (which are fabulous, by the way; I’ve been there and seen the new facilities with my own eyes).
The Brentwood Community Council – and all of Brentwood, as far as I can tell – happily supports anything that will help homeless veterans get housing. Brentwood is “all in.”
Alas, the housing that was promised in 2015 was slow in coming (just 233 units have been completed since that time, with another 535 under construction).
My sense of those at the VA is that they really do want to move more quickly, but insidious bureaucracy keeps everything tangled up in red tape. Putting together the financing for projects like this is also hideously complex. Many involved in providing permanent supportive housing for veterans lament how hard this all is.
Out of frustration with the slow pace of progress, a new group of veteran protesters, led by Robert Reynolds – who served in Iraq – filed yet another lawsuit, based on the slow implementation of the 2015 deal. That’s when Judge Carter took over.
Judge Carter has been exceedingly forceful in demanding action of City and County officials – and their various vendors – who have anything to do with providing shelter or services to the homeless.
Now the VA – a federal agency – is under Judge Carter’s microscope.
Judge Carter ordered 750 temporary shelters be built in the next year and a half and another 1,800 units of permanent housing as soon as possible. Details and timetables obviously need to be worked out.
It seems impractical to give Brentwood School and UCLA the boot overnight; maybe they can be given a 5-year, 10-year, or 20-year phaseout as part of a final resolution.
These two schools do pay the VA to lease their acres, so there is some benefit to the VA in that. The VA has plenty of land elsewhere on campus that can be used for shelter.
Judge Carter demands action and gets things done. ALL our city, county, and federal agencies – and service providers – should display the same sense of urgency.
If LA suffered an earthquake and 40,000 people were thrown out into the streets, somehow the system would rise to the occasion and find shelter for all these people within a week or two. We need to treat LA’s homeless crisis as the emergency it truly is.
Maybe bureaucracy will once again keep things from moving forward the way they should.
But things feel different this time, thanks to Judge Carter.
So let’s make it official: Providing housing to homeless veterans isn’t something the VA has to do; it’s something the VA gets to do.
And Brentwood is right there with the VA and all those committed to providing the shelter and services our veterans deserve.
Thank you, Judge Carter, for providing the kick in the ass this situation has needed for decades.
