It’s possible a miracle just happened, right here in Brentwood.
For some years now, the VA has been fighting a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of homeless veterans.
The ACLU, on behalf of its plaintiffs, asserted the federal government had a legal obligation to provide permanent housing and services for homeless veterans in the area.
The posture of the lawsuit, at least up until recently, had become fairly messy. A federal judge struck down any legal obligation the VA has to provide permanent housing to homeless veterans. So, on this point, the ACLU and its plaintiffs were losing.
On the other hand, the homeless veterans, represented by the ACLU, prevailed in getting private leases on the VA property invalidated. Veteran activists, led by Brentwood resident Robert Rosebrock, had characterized these leases, including plans for a park on the property, as a “land grab.”
Veteran activists want all the land on the property used only for the provision of healthcare and housing for veterans – and not as a park that locals could use, or as a pretty entryway to Brentwood.
These activists say the corner of the VA property at Wilshire and San Vicente could be used as a tent city providing shelter for homeless veterans, if necessary.
Park organizers respond by saying the park and amphitheatre were always intended for the benefit of veterans, many of whom are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health issues, including PTSD.
“Holistic” treatments like yoga and tai chi were to be conducted in the amphitheater, whose construction was recently blocked because of the lawsuit.
Veterans are missing out on a “huge benefit” if the amphitheater isn’t completed, according to Sue Young, head of the Veterans Park Conservancy, which has led the park-building effort for years.
UCLA, with its baseball diamond on the VA campus, along with Brentwood School, which built a very classy athletic facility on VA land, also had to be squirming over the state of the lawsuit, which was all heading up the line on appeal. There is no way to predict how all this would play out.
Nobody has been very happy of late.
The VA looked bad and was often put on the defensive because it wasn’t doing more for homeless veterans. The VA gives out a limited number HUD vouchers that can be used by veterans for housing in local apartments, but many felt this simply wasn’t enough, especially given all the empty buildings and open land on campus.
And if a veteran is in serious need of medical or mental health services, doesn’t it make sense to keep that individual close to where the care will actually be provided? Something didn’t feel quite adequate about the VA’s approach.
But veteran activists, despite many years of protests, hadn’t made much headway with the VA in terms of getting permanent housing built on campus. So the problem they identified wasn’t getting solved. More frustration.
Even if the ACLU prevailed in ending private leases on campus, that didn’t necessarily mean anything more would be done for homeless veterans. The court had actually ruled that the VA didn’t have a legal obligation to provide housing. This could have hurt the cause of those working on behalf of homeless veterans.
Stepping into this rather messy and unhappy situation was new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald, who came to the VA campus on January 28 to announce that all lawsuits would be dropped and all parties would now work together to dramatically boost housing and services on the West LA campus.
In an instant, it felt like life as we knew it had changed forever. Those of us who have covered the VA for years had never heard talk like this before. Before, whenever the subject of homeless veterans or the leases were raised, local VA officials started talking in some kind of denial-based mumbo-jumbo that nobody could fully comprehend.
Actions speak louder than words: In the last 20+ years of covering this issue, VA officials only recently committed to building units that would house just 65 individuals. The units are still in the process of being built in Building 209, one of the campus’s many empty and broken down buildings.
Maybe Building 209 made politicians feel like were doing something, but tell that to the homeless veterans on the streets.
But now everyone – the VA, the ACLU, leaseholders and neighbors – is being asked by Secretary McDonald to contribute to the ultimate solution. And everybody seems to be jumping on board.
This is huge, really huge. I would go so far as to call this a miracle – and probably a life-saving one at that, in many cases.
I’m guessing the idea of having homeless veterans housed on campus probably scares some in Brentwood, but it’s a situation that will just have to be managed. Let’s spend very little time identifying problems and get right to the business at hand: Finding solutions.
Let’s recall the words of Abraham Lincoln, delivered at his second inaugural address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
