The Votes Are In!
2024 Readers' Choice is back, bigger and better than ever!
View Winners → Home / Neighborhood / Los Angeles /
Lawsuit seeking housing for homeless LA vets moves toward trial
Los Angeles Dec 18, 2023
Skid Row is an area of downtown Los Angeles and a main area where Vet Hunters search for homeless veterans and people who need help. | Photo courtesy of Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee/U.S. Air Force CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED
by
share with
A lawsuit brought by a group of veterans against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, challenging land lease agreements and seeking permanent housing for thousands of homeless veterans on and around the VA’s West Los Angeles campus appears to be heading to trial, according to court documents obtained Monday.
The 14 plaintiffs allege the VA has failed in its duty to provide housing and health care to veterans with disabilities, leaving nearly 3,500 veterans sleeping nightly on the streets of Los Angeles, according to the November 2022 complaint.
In a ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter denied a defense motion to dismiss the case, and set a scheduling conference for Jan. 4.
VA spokesman Gary J. Kunich previously said that while VA doesn’t typically comment on pending or ongoing litigation, “we are proud of the work we are doing in Los Angeles and across the nation to end Veteran homelessness.”
In Los Angeles, the department completed 233 permanent supportive housing units on the West L.A. campus with 199 units occupied as of Sept. 15, Kunich said in September, with 134 tiny shelters, plus six units held for overnight drop-ins.
He also described an array of services to address veteran housing instability and homelessness, including outreach and referral services, residential services and help with permanent housing.
The plaintiffs say they suffer serious disabilities such as PTSD and traumatic brain injury. They seek to secure coordinated housing and health care services, including permanent supportive housing, for all unhoused veterans with disabilities in the region.
Without such housing, “veterans with serious disabilities cannot access desperately needed mental and physical treatment services to which they are entitled,” according to the complaint lodged in L.A. federal court.
The suit, filed by Los Angeles-based law firms Public Counsel, the Inner City Law Center and others, also seeks a court order prohibiting the VA from using its 388-acre West Los Angeles property for any venture that does not primarily benefit veterans.
A 2011 lawsuit also addressed the land-use issue. Although the VA committed to construct 1,200 units of new permanent supportive housing — 770 of which should have been completed by now — virtually no such housing has been built as of 2022, according to Public Counsel.
