At a hearing Monday, a federal judge challenged Veterans Affairs officials’ efforts to toss out a lawsuit seeking to fast track housing construction for unhoused veterans at the sprawling West L.A. VA campus.
At the hearing — which ran for several hours — U.S. District Judge David O. Carter distributed a draft ruling in which he would let much of the lawsuit proceed, largely rejecting the government’s requests for him to dismiss it.
In a tense back and forth, Carter repeatedly questioned VA lawyers’ position that it has no legal duty to put veterans first — and at one point had the government’s lawyers call the VA’s housing hotline in open court to ask about outreach efforts to veterans experiencing homelessness.
“We’ve got a judge who feels it, who’s concerned, who wants to do the right thing,” said Mark Rosenbaum, the lead attorney for the veterans suing the VA in the case. “He gets it.”
Attorneys for the VA told LAist they were unable to comment on the tentative ruling.
Carter said he would finalize the ruling in the coming weeks, cautioning that his thinking could change. If it proceeds, Carter said he would likely schedule a trial for the spring.
During the hearing at First Street U.S. Courthouse in Downtown L.A., Carter expressed frustration at the complicated web of agencies involved in the housing efforts – saying the VA ultimately is “absolutely responsible."
And he disputed the VA’s claims that it has no legal obligation – or “fiduciary duty” – to act in the best interest of veterans.
“I think you do have a duty,” Carter told lawyers for the VA.
Carter called the finger-pointing by various government agencies, while veterans suffer on the streets, tragic.
“It’s a magical mystery tour of how these bureaucracies interact,” Carter said. “It’s quite a journey for the court, trying to look through this spaghetti of bureaucracies.”
Federal lawyers argued that federal district court judges — like Carter — don’t have any jurisdiction to decide veteran benefits. But lawyers representing veterans who are the plaintiffs in the case strongly disagreed, arguing that the VA has a legal duty to ensure housing for veterans so they can access healthcare.
Their lawsuit is asking Carter to force the VA to:
- Speed up the building of 1,200 units at the campus so that they’re all built within 5 years, rather than the VA’s current plan of 2030 (which isn’t legally binding).
- Create at least 2,500 new housing options within five miles of the campus, providing permanent supportive housing for veterans with severe mental illness.
- End leases on the campus for non-veteran purposes (such as those with private school athletic facilities) and not enter into any other leases that don’t primarily benefit veterans.
The backstory
In a previous case about veteran homelessness — settled in 2015 — a federal judge found the VA had been illegally renting out the West L.A. campus land for private purposes like athletic facilities for an expensive private school.
As a result of that settlement, the VA promised to build 1,200 units of housing on its campus. But it’s years behind schedule, prompting this latest lawsuit, filed in November. And as the delays linger on, the latest point-in-time count conducted in January shows about 3,900 veterans experience homelessness in L.A. County.
“We wouldn’t be here if that agreement had been honored,” Carter said, expressing frustration with what he said was failures to implement a series of past L.A.-area homelessness court settlements.
The resolution of this lawsuit will need strong court oversight and accountability, Carter told lawyers on Monday, saying the whole system is lacking accountability.
Bureaucracies are “bumping into each other,” he said.
The land was originally gifted to the federal government in 1888 with a deed restriction requiring that it be used as a home for former soldiers. A century ago, about 4,000 veterans lived on the land, but the government started removing the housing after the Korean War.
Promised housing running years behind
At Monday’s hearing, Carter pressed the VA’s attorneys to share how many people are currently living in the newly built housing. There were four attorneys representing the VA at the hearing. But initially none of them had answers when Carter asked in the morning portion of the hearing.
So it fell on the attorney for the veterans suing the federal government — Rosenbaum — to provide a number.
Despite the VA’s promises to build 770 units at the campus by last year, only 185 veterans are housed there, Rosenbaum told the judge.
A few hours later in the hearing, the government attorneys said they heard back with the latest number — 198 people housed currently, out of 233 units that have been built.
Rosenbaum questioned how the VA could still have 35 vacancies, months after those apartments were finished.
“You mean to tell me [in Los Angeles] you can’t find 35 homeless vets?” he said.
The VA’s lawyers said all units have been matched to people, but that they’re just waiting for paperwork to be sorted out.
The problems follow issues first reported by LAist in July. At the time, two thirds of the most recently remodeled apartments on the West L.A. VA campus were still sitting empty two months after after a high-profile ribbon cutting event last spring that declared them move-in ready.
A possible trial next spring
If the parties don’t settle the case, Carter said he probably would schedule a trial for April or May.
He encouraged both sides to “try to get together” to work out a deal that helps veterans and gives the court oversight.
