VA appeals court order to build more homes at West LA campus

The VA will fight a federal court order that it build thousands of homes for military veterans at the West L.A. VA Campus.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has said it will appeal Judge David O. Carter’s decision to have the department foot the bill for the building of emergency veteran housing at 11301 Wilshire Boulevard, LAist reported. The appeal was expected to be filed this week.

The appeal came as U.S. District Judge David O. Carter shot down UCLA’s bid to delay an emergency order for the construction of veterans housing on parking lots next to the university’s shuttered Jackie Robinson Stadium at the VA campus.

Carter had previously ordered that the Department of Veterans Affairs immediately design homes for vets on the paved lots on the 388-acre facility.

Brad Rosenberg, attorney for the VA, argued Friday that the housing payment will cause irreparable harm to department funding. Carter responded by saying that housing construction must continue.

“Until I get a stay from the Ninth Circuit, we go forward,” the federal judge declared, adding that he wants quick work to bring veterans indoors before the rainy season.

His decision followed a month-long federal trial in August filed by homeless veterans and those with disabilities. The vets, who had challenged land lease agreements to UCLA and other entities operating on the VA campus, sought housing for veterans in need.

The judge, an 80-year-old Marine Corps veteran who was so injured in a Vietnam War battle that he was put in a body bag, found for the veterans.  

On Sept. 6, Carter issued two emergency orders to speed up the creation of temporary modular housing on the campus.   

During the non-jury trial, the VA argued that it was out of room on its sprawling campus — and that the lack of acreage precludes an increase to the 1,200 housing units the agency promised to open by 2030. 

VA attorneys alleged any relief ordered by the court would burden the department financially and deprive it of the flexibility needed to solve veteran homelessness.

The court, however, found that veterans are entitled to 2,550 more homes on the campus.

Carter directed the VA to build 750 units of temporary housing within 18 months and to form a plan to add another 1,800 units of permanent housing to the roughly 1,200 units already in planning and construction under the settlement terms of an earlier lawsuit.

After finding that land-use agreements with UCLA’s baseball team, the affluent Brentwood School, an oil company and other private interests on the West L.A. campus were illegal, Carter terminated the leases.

The court is now devising “exit strategies” for former tenants in order to ensure the land — including 10 acres leased to UCLA and 22 acres to the Brentwood School — is put to a use that principally benefits veterans.

Carter wrote that instead of serving veterans, “the West LA VA has served its wealthy and powerful neighbors, bowing to private interests backed by lobbyists and engaging in back-room deals and fraud.”

— Dana Bartholomew

Read more

• Federal judge denies UCLA bid to delay affordable housing 
• Housing crunch delivers punch to LA’s upper crust at VA campus
• Veterans’ lawsuit seeking homes at the VA West LA campus may go to trial

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