Braxton Taylor
The Department of Veterans Affairs held a ribbon-cutting ceremony this week to open new apartments for homeless veterans on the sprawling campus of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center — all while fighting a court order to build more units.
“Here in LA, the VA has housed more homeless veterans than anywhere else in the country,” Meg Kabat, the chief of staff of the VA, said Thursday at the ceremony to mark the completion of 74 units of permanent housing at the West LA VAMC.
“We’re making extraordinary progress” in combating veteran homelessness, Robert Merchant, executive director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, or VAGLAHS, told a local news channel in Los Angeles.
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But Merchant sidestepped on why the VA is appealing a court order by federal District Judge David O. Carter to begin building 750 units of temporary housing for homeless veterans immediately and 1,200 units of permanent housing by 2030.
“I can’t get into details on litigation,” Merchant said.
On Carter’s order, builders had been ready to begin moving the first 100 units of modular temporary housing onto the West LA campus earlier this month when the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly sought a stay. Carter denied the stay, and the VA is now appealing his denial to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
At a Nov. 7 hearing, Carter challenged Justice Department lawyer Cody Knapp, who was representing the VA and HUD, on why the VA was appealing to block the move to house more homeless veterans. Carter rejected Knapp’s argument that the VA lacked the funding to build the initial 100 units.
“This is harmful, Cody,” Carter said, according to the court transcript. “This is not the legacy I think your agency wants to write, is it?”
Carter added that “you can’t break the iceberg with a hundred modulars and you’re claiming you don’t have money. Is that really the legacy of this VA?”
“I truly believe veterans are going to die” if they are denied shelter, Carter said.
In a phone interview, former Army Spc. Rob Reynolds, who recruited homeless veterans to join in the class-action suit that landed in Carter’s court, noted that the Justice Department lawyers cited “the irreparable harm” that would come to the VA if Carter’s rulings were followed.
Reynolds, 35, who served with the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, said in a phone interview that “it was a big blow to everybody” when the VA appealed Carter’s ruling. “The only irreparable harm being done is to the homeless veterans,” he said.
Amelia Piazza, a lawyer with the Public Counsel law firm representing the homeless veterans in the class-action suit, said, “This has really been discouraging to see the VA fighting a plan to get 100 veterans off the streets of Los Angeles. It’s a no-brainier from our point of view.”
In a phone interview, Piazza said the government lawyers have not challenged Carter’s ruling that the various leases granted by the VA for the use of property on the 388-acre West LA campus were void since they were in violation of the original deed mandating that the grounds could be used only for the benefit of veterans.
Carter earlier this month gave UCLA a reprieve — at least until July 2025 — on the lease for use of its Jackie Robinson baseball stadium and adjacent practice field on the West LA campus. Carter initially had ordered the stadium to be locked down when he ordered UCLA’s lease to be terminated.
Carter agreed to let the UCLA Bruins play ball at the stadium until the end of the 2025 season in July 2025 after UCLA agreed to pay $600,000 — double the initial rent — to the VA.
UCLA Athletics Director Martin Jarmond said in a statement, “Our young men have been working hard and keeping a positive attitude throughout this period of uncertainty, and we are pleased that they will be able to resume their regular training at the stadium,” UCLA’s student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, reported.
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