After months of hearings, a federal judge ruled last month that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs discriminated against homeless veterans whose disability compensation made them ineligible to build housing on a West Los Angeles campus.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter earlier ruled that the Veterans Administration has a fiduciary duty to use the 388-acre campus primarily for housing and health care for disabled veterans, making it difficult to use part of the campus for Doubts have arisen over the legality of leasing sports facilities, oil drilling and two parking lots.
However, neither ruling revealed what remedies, if any, the VA might face. The issue will be at the center of contention in a nonjury trial that begins Tuesday in downtown federal court, the culmination of more than a decade of legal battles and a half-century of discontent over veterans’ land.
In a brief filed last month, attorneys for veterans asked Carter to issue an order requiring the VA to provide nearly 4,000 units of permanent supportive housing on campus. That would add 2,740 units to the 1,215 already planned or under construction under the terms of the previous lawsuit. They also requested the construction of 1,000 shelter beds.
They further asked the judge to prohibit the VA from entering into contracts with developers whose funding sources impose restrictive income limits that prohibit veterans from receiving disability compensation. If approved, such an order could have nationwide ramifications for VA housing construction, which relies on third-party developers.
The brief did not specify leases to UCLA and neighboring Brentwood schools for athletic facilities as well as oil and parking operations. It asked Carter to rule that the lease was invalid but did not say whether it should be canceled or renegotiated to better serve veterans.
American flags decorate tents at the homeless veterans camp on San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood, California, on July 4, 2020.
(Louis Zinco/Los Angeles Times)
Justice Department lawyers representing the Department of Veterans Affairs argued in a counter-brief that Carter should not order more housing or issue an injunction because the remedies sought are unnecessary and unworkable and would put veterans’ administration at risk brings an undue burden.
The lawsuit, filed in November by 14 veterans, follows a class-action lawsuit that revives an earlier lawsuit that challenged the lease and claimed the need for permanent housing was not being met. In a 2015 settlement, the Veterans Administration agreed to develop a master plan for the campus. A draft master plan completed in 2016 called for 1,200 housing units in new and rehabilitated buildings on campus, with a commitment to complete more than 770 units by the end of 2022. open.
The new lawsuit, filed by Public Counsel, Inner City Legal Center and the law firms Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP and Robins Kaplan LLP, alleges VA violated the settlement agreement.
The plaintiffs’ lead attorney, Public Counsel Mark Rosenbaum, said at a hearing last year that the new case was necessary because he erred in not asking for court oversight of the 2015 settlement. .
“The term ‘homeless veteran’ is supposed to be an American oxymoron,” the lawsuit states. “But here’s the hard truth — the federal government has consistently refused to keep its word and take meaningful action to end the abhorrent phenomenon of veteran homelessness.”
Controversies over housing date back to the Vietnam War.
The West Los Angeles campus, formally known as the Pacific Division of the National Disabled Volunteer Soldiers’ Home, is a home for Civil War veterans on land established by Senator John P. Jones and his business partner, a socialite and businesswoman. Donated 1888 Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker is a descendant of a landowning family dating back to missionary times. After World War I, the campus “gradually evolved from institutional housing to medical services that enabled veterans to reintegrate into civilian society,” according to a history on the Veterans Administration website.
In the early 20th century, as many as 4,000 veterans lived here, but after World War II, the campus continued to transform into a medical center as advances in battlefield medical technology allowed survivors to survive at higher rates and suffer more severe injuries. By 1962, the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center had become the largest medical center in the country, with more than 6,000 patients and 4,500 staff members.
But in the late 1960s, residential use declined. Then, after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the Wadsworth Hospital building was deemed seismically unstable and demolished. The approximately 1,000 remaining residents of the Old Soldiers’ Home were suddenly evicted to make room for a temporary hospital during reconstruction. Only about half were moved to other Veterans Administration facilities, and after the new hospital opened, the old building was left to deteriorate.
Carter ruled in December that an 1888 deed to 300 acres of land earmarked for “the erection, erection and perpetual maintenance of a branch of the said National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers” created a charitable trust and that Congress passed the The West Los Angeles Lease Act of 2016 imposes an enforceable fiduciary duty to use the land to benefit veterans.
In May, Carter certified the case as a class action lawsuit on behalf of all homeless veterans living in Los Angeles County who have severe mental illness or traumatic brain injury and whose income, including VA disability benefits, exceeds 50% of all class members’ subcategories.
Last month, Carter issued a partial summary judgment in favor of veterans, finding that the VA discriminated against veterans whose disability compensation made them ineligible for housing built by developers whose funding sources were subject to income restrictions.
“Those who give the most receive the least,” he wrote.
Rosenbaum argued in a pretrial brief that the VA’s lack of adequate housing forces veterans with severe mental illness or traumatic brain injuries to be institutionalized.
“Homeless veterans with severe mental illness and traumatic brain injuries lack permanent supportive housing and need to go through an institutional cycle of temporary housing, emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, and prisons to access health care, including Mental health services.
In support of their client’s bid for more housing, the plaintiffs plan to offer testimony from three prominent Los Angeles residents. Developer Steve Soboroff, a former police chief, will testify that he has identified space for an additional 4,000 units on campus. 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 Susan Dvorak-Peck School of Social Work Benjamin Henwood will testify about the mental health impacts of homelessness.
The government’s objections argue that the 2022 updated masterplan provides a “supportive integrated community” with services, amenities and recreation, culture and open space.
The government argued that the plaintiffs’ request would impose an undue burden, requiring the Veterans Administration to construct approximately 40 buildings, obtain new historic preservation environmental reporting permits and expand utilities to new areas of campus.
It cites several improvements the VA has made to its services and changes to income requirements that make 97 percent of homeless veterans eligible for federal housing vouchers.
It also argued that placing most veterans with severe mental illness or traumatic brain injuries on campus would “isolate them from the wider community and potentially lead to stigmatization of their disabilities”.
Carter has yet to rule on the validity of the lease, which reserves limited time for veterans to use the athletic facilities and generates revenue from the Veterans Administration’s oil and parking operations.
Rosenbaum cited a 2021 report from the VA Office of Inspector General, which concluded that seven VA land-use leases, including those for Brentwood Schools and oil and parking operators, failed to Complying with the West Los Angeles Rental Code, and half a year after 7 and earlier settlements, supportive housing has not yet been completed.
Attorneys representing Bridgeland Resources LLC intervened in the case and filed a brief in which they argued that the company used a portion of the VA property for tilt drilling in the West Los Angeles oil field in a 2017 lease that complied with the West Los Angeles Lease Act” because it charges a 2.5 percent royalty to the Los Angeles Chapter of Disabled American Veterans “solely for the purpose of providing transportation services to veterans in and around the Veterans Administration Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System campus.” They said that if The lease is void and the previous lease will come into effect, allowing Bridgeland to expand its operations.
Those earlier leases also will be void, Rosenbaum said.
Neither UCLA nor the Brentwood school had attorneys present or seeking intervention. Spokespersons for UCLA and Brentwood declined to comment.
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this article.
