{"id":202103,"date":"2025-09-05T10:53:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202103\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T10:53:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T10:53:10","slug":"trumps-veterans-housing-plan-in-west-l-a-advances-behind-a-wall-of-secrecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/202103\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s veterans housing plan in West L.A. advances behind a wall of secrecy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump\u2019s executive order<\/a> calling for a National Center for Warrior Independence to house thousands of veterans in West Los Angeles has gained widespread support, including among his political opposition.<\/p>\n

But as a deadline approaches for an action plan to be submitted to the president, supporters of the order have become alarmed that potentially radical change for land donated as a home for disabled veterans more than a century ago is being drafted behind a wall of secrecy.<\/p>\n

The Department of Veterans Affairs has required everyone associated with the planning \u2014 employees, contractors and other government officials \u2014 to sign nondisclosure agreements, and has denied both congressional staffers and veterans and their advocates the opportunity to review or comment on the plan, they say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am thankful for President Trump\u2019s executive order,\u201d said Iraq war veteran Rob Reynolds, speaking at a roundtable on the executive order last week. \u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve seen or read anything where the president of the United States has taken a position that this is a Soldiers\u2019 Home.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Reynolds, who has become an unofficial advocate for veterans trying to obtain housing and services on the West L.A. campus, said the VA has blown an opportunity to build trust with veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen over the years how it goes when you have meetings behind closed doors and you don\u2019t consult with people affected by the plan,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be problems with that plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three-hour session in the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall near downtown was convened by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside), ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans\u2019 Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough I disagree with the president on almost everything, I am as eager as he is to see the Soldiers\u2019 Home become a community for veterans and to see us establish a Center for Warrior Independence in West L.A.,\u201d Takano said.<\/p>\n

Takano framed the event as a roundtable, rather than congressional hearing, after the VA declined to send any staff to answer questions and no Republicans on the committee agreed to attend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do want everyone to know they were invited,\u201d Takano said in leading the session off. \u201cI am particularly frustrated by the lack of transparency VA has shown Congress, the public and veterans about its plans for West L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two other House members, Brad Sherman (D-Porter Ranch), whose district includes the West L.A. campus, and Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles), attended, as did Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.<\/p>\n

Trump issued the order May 9<\/a>, giving the VA 120 days to return with a plan \u201cto house up to 6,000 homeless veterans\u201d by Jan. 1, 2028.<\/p>\n

That number \u2014 three times greater than the housing currently planned on the 388-acre property \u2014 led to speculation<\/a> about what kind of housing was intended, where it would go, what it would cost and where the money would come from.<\/p>\n

The VA has included $530 million for construction on the West L.A. campus in its current budget request, but it\u2019s unclear whether that amount will be approved by Congress, Sherman said.<\/p>\n

He said the House has passed a $1.75-billion appropriation covering all construction of VA hospitals, clinics, housing and even cemeteries across the nation.<\/p>\n

There is no indication a third or a quarter of that money will be spent in L.A., and the Senate version of the bill earmarks only $53 million for West L.A., Sherman said.<\/p>\n

In response to a request for comment, VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement that \u201cthe VA recently announced $818 million in grants<\/a> to fight Veteran homelessness across the country, of which more than $138 million will benefit Veterans in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kasperowicz declined The Times\u2019 request to interview the VA\u2019s Veterans Experience Officer Lynda Davis, who leads the action plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat planning process is underway and additional announcements regarding implementation and budget will be made once the process is complete,\u201d his statement said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order has added a new dimension to a more than decade-long court battle over the VA\u2019s failure to provide veteran housing on the property which was deeded to the government in 1888 as a home for disabled soldiers. After housing as many as 4,000 veterans early in the 20th century, the Soldier\u2019s Home was shut down in the early 1970s as the VA shifted its mission to medical treatment.<\/p>\n

The settlement of a 2011 lawsuit requires the VA to produce 1,200 units of permanent housing on the grounds. Rather than fund and build it, the VA contracted the work to affordable housing developers who brought outside funding through time-consuming tax credits. So far, the developers have completed 571 of those units. <\/p>\n

A second lawsuit precipitated by that slow progress led to a judgment last year<\/a> requiring the VA to quickly build 750 units of prefab housing to be occupied by veterans temporarily while it builds another 1,800 units of permanent housing.<\/p>\n

The order, by U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter, was stayed after the VA appealed the judgment. Nearly five months after hearing arguments<\/a>, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has yet to issue a ruling.<\/p>\n

In a sign of how Trump\u2019s VA order has bridged political alignments, lawyers with the Public Counsel pro bono law firm, which has sued the Trump administration<\/a> over immigration policy, quoted from it extensively in a supplemental brief filed with the 9th Circuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis presidential directive \u2018restores\u2019 the Grounds to their original purpose of \u201chous[ing] disabled veterans,\u201d they wrote, praising it as an endorsement of their goal of expediting new housing construction on the campus. <\/p>\n

But the order\u2019s wording to \u201crestore the capacity to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans\u201d left a wide range of possibilities \u2014 whether it meant 6,000 units for permanent residency or fewer units that veterans from around the country would be shuttled through on a temporary basis.<\/p>\n

Kasperowicz\u2019s statement said the facility would be used by veterans nationwide. <\/p>\n

\u201cBy establishing the National Center for Warrior Independence, we will turn the campus into a beacon of hope and a destination for homeless Veterans from across the nation who can find housing and support there and start their journey back to self-sufficiency,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

Veterans speaking at the roundtable had diverse views on the type of housing needed. <\/p>\n

Army veteran Rob Begland called \u201cpreposterous\u201d the notion of 6,000 veterans from across the nation being \u201cdumped into Los Angeles.\u201d But he also said it would be a grave mistake to view the goal merely as housing the veterans of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe our most general duty to veterans is to reintegrate them into society after their military service,\u201d he said, urging the Congress members to press the administration on the need for vocational training. <\/p>\n

Some veterans say the VA policies on housing hold them back from reintegrating in other parts of life. <\/p>\n

Air Force veteran Robert Canas said he is unable to access his vocational benefits for fear of losing his housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are being told that if we go back to school we are going to be evicted from the apartment,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are being told that if we go back to work and make too much money that we are going to be evicted from the apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anthony Allman, executive director of Vets Advisory, a nonprofit created to monitor the the 2011 settlement, proposed a VA collaboration with the community colleges to build housing for the veterans attending them.<\/p>\n

Sal Grammatico, who said he has been active on the campus for 20 years, said housing is also needed for patients receiving treatment at the VA hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it needs to be made part of the plan as to what percentage of the housing at the home is going to be transitional housing versus permanent housing versus housing for the veterans that are being treated while they are going through all their different procedures including psychological, physical and everything else,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Reynolds said there needs to be housing options more aligned to individual veterans\u2019 needs.<\/p>\n

The \u201charm reduction\u201d model followed at the tiny home village on the campus has been valuable in getting veterans off the street who are struggling with substance abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatching veterans from when they were out on the street come in, I do see the drug use go down,\u201d he said. \u201cWith that, there are veterans out there that are sober and would like programs where they can be around other veterans that are sober.\u201d<\/p>\n

There should be areas on campus for both, he said, and also \u201can area for those with severe mental illness that really need case management.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of the veterans described safety and security issues that need to be addressed for the housing that already exists.<\/p>\n

Canas said lack of support services have allowed a drug den and brothel to operate in a hallway of his building leading to frequent overdoses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are consistently having people die on that campus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Following the roundtable, Takano and Sherman said they are working on legislation that would increase transparency, prohibit nondisclosure agreements and address the issues raised by veterans.<\/p>\n

Sherman acknowledged that any plans for the VA face a philosophical dilemma that goes beyond simply getting housing built.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want people to be disincentivized to get their life together and get their careers together,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cAt the same time, your Utopian brotherhood of veterans, sisterhood of veterans community would mean that if somebody founds a high-tech firm and makes $5 million they continue to live there because that\u2019s their community.\u201d <\/p>\n

But practical considerations come first, he said: \u2018Let\u2019s get people indoors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump\u2019s executive order calling for a National Center for Warrior Independence to house thousands of veterans in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":202104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[13231,83466,1582,276,20796,316,7065,2961,224,2444,5337,8145,1807,39070,111674,277,93280,41695,11457,111673],"class_list":{"0":"post-202103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-action-plan","9":"tag-brad-sherman","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-executive-order","13":"tag-home","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-times","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-order","20":"tag-president-trump","21":"tag-secrecy","22":"tag-takano","23":"tag-trump","24":"tag-unit","25":"tag-va","26":"tag-veteran","27":"tag-west-l-a-campus"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115151320629226432","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}