California senators back plan to move homeless vets to West LA campus

The West Los Angeles Healthcare Center is on the Southwest corner of the San Diego Freeway (route 405) and Wilshire Boulevard.

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  The Department of Veterans Affairs will open a transitional housing facility for veterans on Thursday and launch a planning process later in June for the redevelopment of its 387-acre West Los Angeles VA Medical Center campus, just six months after settling a 2011 lawsuit that accused the VA of misusing the land and discriminating against homeless vets.

LOS ANGELES — California’s two U.S. senators were to propose legislation Thursday that would help move some of the thousands of veterans living in makeshift encampments across the region into housing at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ campus in West Los Angeles.

The move comes as Southern California is seeing an increase in the homeless population in downtown Los Angeles and other parts of the region. A count released earlier this year by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority found a 12% jump in the overall homeless ranks and a 6% rise among homeless veterans.

In a letter to the House and Senate Veterans Affairs committees, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) said the legislation would grant the VA the authority to enter into leases with local governments and nonprofit groups to provide veterans with shelter supplemented by medical and other services.

Critics say that politicians and the VA have dragged their heels on permanent housing for the Westside campus. They say that the agency and its political allies were more interested in the money that had come from other ventures on the sprawling property such as storage for rental cars and buses, and a stadium for the UCLA baseball team.

The legislation would help the VA satisfy the terms of a legal settlement announced in January that laid the groundwork to turn the West Los Angeles campus into a community for homeless veterans.

The settlement also called for curtailing the controversial practice of leasing VA property and facilities to corporations, the private Brentwood School and other non-government entities.

The deadline to develop a master plan for the 387-acre property is October.

VA Secretary Robert McDonald and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti have agreed to work toward the goal of ending veteran homelessness in Los Angeles by the end of the year. Los Angeles County has about 4,400 chronically homeless veterans, according to a January count by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

“There is a critical need for long-term supportive housing,” the lawmakers said in a statement Thursday. “Los Angeles is home to the largest population of homeless veterans in the country, which is simply unacceptable.”

Still, any fix by lawmakers could be weeks or months into the future. The senators hope to attach the proposed legislation to Congress’ 2016 authorization bill for veterans’ services, which may be hammered out this fall by committees in both chambers, according to Feinstein’s staff.

Congress left Washington, D.C., this week for a month-long August recess and will take up business again during the second week of September.

VA spokesman Michael Huff said Wednesday that the agency welcomed the congressional support, which would “greatly enhance our ability to end veteran homelessness in greater Los Angeles,” Huff said.

The legislation, if passed, leaves open the door for UCLA to keep using the stadium in exchange for providing more care for veterans, he said.

Stars and Stripes staff writer Travis Tritten contributed to this report.