After months of hearings, a federal judge ruled last month that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs discriminated against homeless veterans whose disability benefits make them ineligible for housing built on its West Los Angeles campus.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter previously ruled that the VA had a fiduciary duty to use the 388-acre campus primarily for housing and health care for disabled veterans, casting doubt on the legality of leases that gave away portions of it for sports facilities, oil drilling and two parking lots.
But neither ruling offered any indication of what, if any, remedies the VA might face. That question will be at the heart of a nonjury trial that begins Tuesday in a downtown federal courthouse, the culmination of more than a decade of legal battles — and a half-century of grievances — over veterans’ land.
In a brief filed last month, veterans’ attorneys asked Carter to issue an order requiring the VA to provide nearly 4,000 units of permanent assisted living housing on campus. That would add 2,740 units to the 1,215 already planned or under construction under the terms of a previous lawsuit. They also seek construction of 1,000 shelter beds.
They also ask the judge to bar the VA from contracting with developers whose funding sources impose restrictive income limits that exclude veterans receiving 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 leases to UCLA and the nearby Brentwood school for athletic facilities and oil and parking operations. It asks Carter to declare the leases invalid, but does not specify whether they should be canceled or renegotiated to better serve veterans.
American flags decorate tents at a homeless veterans encampment along San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood, California, on July 4, 2020.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
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 impracticable and would impose an undue burden on the VA.
The complaint, filed last November by 14 veterans and since expanded into a class action, replicates an earlier complaint that challenged the leases and alleged 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 on-campus housing units 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 the Public Counsel, the Inner City Law Center and the law firms Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP and Robins Kaplan LLP, alleges that the VA reneged on the settlement agreement.
The plaintiff’s lead attorney, Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, said at a hearing last year that the new case was necessary because he erred in not requiring court oversight of the 2015 settlement.
“The phrase ‘homeless veteran’ should be an American oxymoron,” the complaint said. “But it’s the cruel truth: The federal government consistently refuses to keep its word and take meaningful action to end the abomination of veteran homelessness.”
The housing controversy dates back to the Vietnam War era.
The West Los Angeles campus, formerly known as the Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, was established to house Civil War veterans on land donated in 1888 by Sen. John P. Jones and his business partner, socialite and businesswoman Arcadia Bandini Stearns of Baker, a descendant of a landowning family dating 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.
By the early 20th century, as many as 4,000 veterans lived on the site, but the campus’s transformation into a medical center continued after World War II as advances in battlefield medical care improved survival rates for the more seriously wounded. By 1962, the West LA VA Medical Center was the largest in the country, with more than 6,000 patients and 4,500 staff.
But by the late 1960s, residential use had declined. Then, after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, the Wadsworth Hospital building was deemed unseismic and demolished. To make room for a temporary hospital while it was being rebuilt, the remaining 1,000 or so residents of the Old Soldiers Home were abruptly evicted. Only half of them were relocated to other VA facilities, and after the new hospital opened, the old buildings were left to decay.
Carter ruled in December that the 1888 deed for 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 passing the West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016, assumed enforceable fiduciary duties to use the land for the benefit of veterans.
In May, Carter certified the case as a class action representing all homeless veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injury who reside in Los Angeles County and a subclass of all class members whose income (including veterans disability benefits) exceeds 50% of the area 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 financing sources have income limits.
“Those who have given the most cannot receive the least,” he wrote.
In his pretrial brief, Rosenbaum argued that the lack of adequate housing at the VA forces veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injuries to be institutionalized.
“Homeless veterans with serious mental illness and traumatic brain injury who do not have permanent, supportive housing move through an institutional cycle of temporary housing, emergency departments, psychiatric facilities, and prisons to receive health care, including mental health services,” he wrote.
To support their request for additional housing, the plaintiffs intend to present testimony from three prominent Los Angeles residents. Developer and former police commissioner Steve Soboroff will testify that he has identified space on campus for 4,000 additional housing units. Jonathan Sherin, former director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and Benjamin Henwood, director of the Center for Research on Homelessness, Housing and Health Equity at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at USC, will testify about the impacts of homelessness on mental health.
The government’s opposition brief argued that the 2022 master plan update provides for a “cohesive and integrated community” with services, amenities and recreational, cultural and open spaces.
The plaintiffs’ request would impose an undue burden, the government argued, by requiring the VA to construct about 40 buildings, obtain a new environmental report, obtain historic preservation permits and extend utilities to new areas of the campus.
He cited 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.
She also argued that housing a majority of veterans with serious mental illness or traumatic brain injuries on campus would “isolate them from the broader community and likely lead to stigmatization because of their disabilities.”
Carter has yet to rule on the validity of the leases, which set aside a limited time for veterans to use sports facilities and generate revenue from oil and parking operations for VA operations.
Rosenbaum cited a 2021 report from the VA Office of Inspector General concluding that seven of the VA’s land-use leases, including those with the Brentwood School and oil and parking operators, were not in compliance with West Los Angeles rental law and that seven and a half years after the previous settlement, no assisted living units had yet been completed.
Attorneys representing Bridgeland Resources LLC intervened in the case, filing a brief arguing that the 2017 lease under which the company uses part of the VA property to drill at an angle in a West Los Angeles oil field complies with West Los Angeles leasing law because it provides a 2.5 percent royalty to the Los Angeles chapter of the Disabled American Veterans Association “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, the prior leases would then kick in, allowing Bridgeland to expand its operations.
Rosenbaum said those prior leases would also be invalid.
Neither UCLA nor the Brentwood School have retained attorneys or sought to intervene. Spokespeople for UCLA and the Brentwood School declined to comment.
Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.
