The Brief

At the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, Army veteran Josh Petit gestures toward a cluster of about 50 “tiny homes” that sit on an unpaved chunk of land on the 387-acre expanse.

They’re cramped but, says Petit, “I think it’s a blessing compared to what was here before, which was nothing.”

Petit, a 6-foot-2 vet who served in Iraq, struggled with substance abuse for many years and has been in and out of homelessness for nearly two decades. He’s now sober and recently moved into one of these small 8-by-8 foot dwellings on campus.

Petit says the showers are ice cold and the toilet and sink are so close he can hardly sit down. But after living in a tent encampment in front of the VA — known as Veterans Row on San Vicente Boulevard — he says this is a welcome step up.

“I was infantry in the Army. I’m used to being in the mud, in the muck,” he explains. “Gimme a place with electricity and an AC, I'll sit in there and be happy with it.”

The 'homeless veterans capital of the country' 

Nearly 4,000 U.S. veterans live without permanent housing in L.A. County, according to a 2022 report by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Once deemed the “homeless veterans capital of the country,” L.A. has had more unhoused veterans than any city in America.

Red tape and an overly complex administrative process paired with years of illegal mismanagement of the West Los Angeles VA land have left those who have served our country forced to wage a new battle to secure housing and benefits when they finally return home.

Like so many other veterans, Petit, 42, has lived through years of instability, fighting for promised benefits through the VA since his return from war. “I've met many veterans out here that had devastating things happen to them,” Petit says.

Josh Petit is an army veteran who's experienced homelessness for years. He is awaiting a spot in newly constructed apartments on the West LA VA campus

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Michael Flores

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LAist

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The tiny homes where Petit now lives were constructed in 2021 as a quick fix for moving people out of Veterans Row. They were always meant to be temporary, but most veterans in the dwellings have no idea when — or if — they will qualify for permanent housing. And even if they did, they would have to trudge through seemingly endless paperwork, office visits and an application process that could last years. For some, it never ends.

“You have instances where people are sitting for a year in a tiny home when they should already be in housing,” said Rob Reynolds, an advocate for unhoused veterans.

Reynolds, who served in Iraq and was unhoused himself for some time after he was discharged, says he’s most concerned about veterans who are severely disabled or suffering from mental health issues and can’t advocate for themselves.

“This work has been absolutely taxing and frustrating,” he says about his daily mission to get services for veterans. “It takes so much to get very small things accomplished.”

Apartments behind schedule … and unfilled 

In May, the VA opened up 233 units in three newly renovated buildings to house veterans on the massive West L.A. campus, operated by the Veterans Health Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The new apartments are a response to a 2011 lawsuit alleging the VA was illegally renting the land to private interests and not delivering on its mandate to house veterans.

But the VA is running about four years behind schedule and hundreds of units short on that promise. (By 2022, the VA was supposed to have built 770 units). And still many of the new apartments that are available remain empty because of all the bureaucracy laid out above.

“There’re many roadblocks for a lot of us,” Petit says. “If the VA had been doing what they should have been doing, none of this would have happened.”

U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough and other officials celebrate the grand opening of 120 new apartments for unhoused veterans at the VA's West LA campus on May 2, 2023. Two months later, most of the apartments were still empty.

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Nick Gerda

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West L.A. campus

For years, the West L.A. campus — gifted to the VA in the 1800s to house former soldiers — has been riddled with controversy. There was the 2011 lawsuit after which a judge ruled the VA misused the campus by leasing land for hotel laundry, a film studio storage lot and UCLA’s baseball stadium. In 2018, a VA employee pleaded guilty to taking bribes from a private parking lot company that was leasing land at the campus. In 2021, a VA office Inspector General report found that many of the leases on campus were in violation of the VA’s legal obligation to house and support veterans.

“The VA catered to those entities over veterans' needs,” says Rob Reynolds.

And last November, 14 veterans filed another suit demanding the VA speed up the renovation of the abandoned buildings that have long dotted the massive landscape and stick to its promised timeline for the new units.

“The phrase ‘homeless veteran’ should be an American oxymoron,” the lawsuit states. “But this is the cruel truth — the federal government consistently refuses to keep its word and take meaningful actions to bring the abomination of veteran homelessness to an end. The VA remains a principal cause of continuing homelessness among veterans.”

In response to questions about the delays, the VA has cited environmental impact studies, the need for infrastructure upgrades and lack of funding to complete the construction.

“Would we have liked to build these units sooner?” says John Kuhn, Deputy Medical Center Director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. “Of course, everyone is interested in getting as much housing developed as fast as possible.”

The roadblocks 

Beyond building delays, getting approved to live in these units can be a challenge. Missing or incorrect details in any of the paperwork can disqualify veterans, requiring them to restart the process all over again.

Veterans who are “severely mentally ill, severely disabled … will show up here, have no identification, no paperwork, and then they have to go through this whole process again that can take three to six months,” Reynolds says.

Perhaps the most frustrating roadblock is the issue of income limit restrictions. Many veterans struggling with mental or physical health issues receive disability compensation that exceeds the Area Median Income for affordable housing, disqualifying them from many units reserved for veterans.

“So the cruel irony here is that the most disabled veterans — the ones that would benefit the most from living at the VA — are being told they can't live at the VA,” Reynolds says.

Veterans and their advocates say a lack of direct communication between local officials, like L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and veterans themselves has delayed the process further.

But Bass says she is committed to getting vets housed.

“I have been very much involved in these issues along with other categories of homeless people as well,” Bass told LAist. “In terms of speeding up the building, I've been very dismayed by that. If we can get the flexibility in some of the rules, we will be able to house a lot more.”

Bass also said she is currently working at the federal level to push the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to shift these policies regarding income caps and consider veterans’ specific needs.

Still, veterans say they don’t feel heard.

“Just talk to us,” Josh Petit said. “I mean, we’re veterans, if we don’t bond with you, we’re not gonna work with you.”

Edward’s story 

“I fought in Afghanistan, I’m 70% disabled,” says Edward Sotelo, a formerly unhoused veteran now living on the West L.A. VA campus. “Why should I have to fight for my service connection back here?”

Sotelo, 36, recalls waiting three months for a first appointment with the VA a number of times. With no luck getting benefits, he alternated between crashing on friends’ couches and living on the streets after he was discharged from Afghanistan more than a decade ago.

Edward Sotelo is an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. He just got a new apartment on the West LA VA campus after being on and off unhoused for almost a decade.

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Michael Flores

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LAist

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Eventually, he got into a VA rehabilitation program that helped him stay sober long enough to get the housing application filed correctly. But injuries Sotelo sustained in Afghanistan rendered him 70% disabled — he now says he struggles with PTSD and a traumatic brain injury — and his disability payments put him above most of the income caps on the new units at the West L.A. VA.

“I had lost hope at that time period,” he says. “I honestly thought what I was going through was a life sentence.”

But in May, after an excruciating, decade-long journey — the paperwork, bouncing between agencies, waiting years to get into rehab and therapy to stay sober — Sotelo finally found an apartment on campus he qualified for, only after the income limit was lifted. He now has keys to his own place.

Along with high-quality amenities in the apartment, which are “beautiful and modern,” Sotelo says, he’s also taking college courses at Santa Monica College and is enrolled in therapy through VA benefits.

“There are miracles that can happen within this space,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “But I had to go find it all myself. What about the guys out there that can't do that? Who are not able to protect themselves?”

‘Any day now, I’m hoping’ 

As for Iraq vet Josh Petit, he’s still waiting for his turn to move into one of the new permanent units on campus. He’s been living in his tiny home for more than a year and a half.

“My mental health has been greatly improved, from where I was out on San Vicente sticking a needle in my arm,” he says. “It’s not what we deserve, but it’s a step up from the tents.”

He says having his own shower, even a tiny one hovering over the sink, helps him to maintain his hygiene. This allows him to regularly see his family, including his 17-year-old daughter. “I just don’t want to lose my family,” he says, tearfully.

Whether or not he will soon be transferred into one of the newly constructed units as promised remains unknown.

“They said I’m in one of the new buildings,” he tells us. “So any day now, I’m hoping.”

The leader of a congressional panel warned Tuesday he would use “every tool” to get Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to testify after she skipped a hearing that put L.A.’s homeless services system in the hot seat.

It came as multiple audits, reviews and court rulings have found L.A. has failed to ensure proper tracking of large-scale spending on homeless services — particularly through the joint city-county L.A. Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. Much of the money is federal dollars authorized by Congress.

Bass had declined to testify at Tuesday’s hearing, saying she was unavailable and that it would be a “politically motivated” attack. Her public schedule showed she planned to attend a groundbreaking of a shopping and community center in the Pacific Palisades two hours after the hearing was set to start.

Rep. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee's DOGE subcommittee, said she won't get off that easily.

Bass "seems intent on evading accountability, but she knows we will not let her off the hook," Burchett said at the hearing. He added that he and the Oversight Committee’s chair would "use every tool at our disposal to secure her appearance if she does not cooperate.”

House committees and subcommittees can issue subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify or provide documents.

Just before the hearing got underway, Bass called it "the latest attack on Los Angeles by the Trump Administration and his allies in Congress.”

"I don't run LAHSA," she said, adding that she was the first mayor to sit on its board and that street homelessness has dropped since she took office. The latest official count for the city showed a 8% year to year jump in street homelessness.

Bass stepped off LAHSA’s governing commission last week, after LAist reported she had missed most of its meetings since she appointed herself to it in 2023. The mayor cited “time and all” as her reason for stepping down. She continues to appoint — and has the power to remove — half the commission’s members, including its current chair.

What happened at the hearing

Much of the hour-and-a-half hearing focused on Republican members’ criticism that Democrat-led cities distribute drug paraphernalia and don’t require unhoused people with addictions to get treatment as a condition of living in publicly funded housing.

Some proposals raised Tuesday would change how money reaches Los Angeles.

Burchett said he will introduce the Recovery First Housing Act, to require federally funded housing to offer substance abuse treatment. He has also introduced a bill restricting federal housing dollars to only support U.S. citizens.

LA's fights on a national stage

Burchett noted LAHSA’s audit committee chair, Justin Szlasa — who was proactive in rooting out wasteful spending — was demoted by Stephanie Graves, a Bass appointee who has declined to give her reason for doing so. The move was first reported by LAist.

Burchett also made claims that don’t hold up. He said 50,000 people are homeless in the city with "another 75,000" in the surrounding county. The latest official count found a total of 73,000 unhoused people across L.A. County — a figure that includes the city.

Burchett also said, “ LAHSA recently doled out funds to an L.A.-area nonprofit whose CEO had just been indicted for fraud.” LAist recently investigated LAHSA’s awarding of funds to that nonprofit, Abundant Blessings, and found no indication that LAHSA awarded it any funds after the fraud indictment. However, the review did find that long before the indictment, LAHSA kept awarding millions in contracts to the group even after it was flagged internally as high-risk for failing to do its job.

Burchett, however, was correct in saying “a court-ordered independent assessment of LAHSA's finances found alarming financial control weaknesses that leave the door open to rampant fraud.”

On Tuesday, street safety advocates and families of victims of vehicle collisions demanded that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declare a state of emergency on traffic violence in the city.

Sandra Sanchez Loulakis’s son died last year after she said he was hit by a negligent driver.

“I’ve been struggling just to survive daily,” she said at the news conference organized by traffic safety nonprofit Streets are for Everyone. “This is what happens to a parent when they lose a child.”

The city has seen 8% more fatal traffic collisions this year than during the same period last year, according to LAPD data from the end of August.

Advocates said an emergency declaration would better coordinate resources to respond to traffic fatalities, which have exceeded the rate of homicides for the last three years.

“ This is not a matter of we don't know what to do,” Damian Kevitt, who leads Streets are for Everyone, said Tuesday. “This is a matter of we know exactly what to do. We’re just not making this a priority as a city.”

Kevitt said more than 1,250 people signed an open letter delivered to the mayor and L.A. City Council. One of the demands listed in the letter is for the city to restore transportation department staff.

Earlier this year, the city gave up $100 million in state grants to make streets safer because it did not have the personnel to complete the projects in compliance with state-mandated deadlines.

Draft executive directive on Vision Zero

It appears there had been momentum from the mayor’s office earlier this year to issue an executive directive recommitting the city to its Vision Zero goals of reducing traffic fatalities to zero.

According to emails from May shared with LAist, the mayor’s senior director of transportation told an activist that a draft executive directive was “under review” and expected to be released “within the next three weeks.”

The email was sent to Jonathan Hale, who organizes community members to paint crosswalks where there have been pedestrian-involved collisions.

The executive directive has yet to be released.

LAist submitted a public records request for drafts of the executive directive, but on Sept. 14, the mayor’s office responded saying it could not disclose any records.

“[The records] include drafts and/or deliberative process for which the public interest served in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public interest served by the disclosure,” the office said.

The mayor’s office has not responded to requests for comment about the draft executive directive.

A new report commissioned by Olympics organizers estimates that the 2028 Games will generate at least $20 billion in economic output across Greater Los Angeles.

The analysis, prepared for LA28 by the nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation’s Institute for Applied Economics, looked at the economic effects of L.A. hosting the Olympics and Paralympics. It includes organizing committee spending, capital investments, publicly funded transportation and security investments, and tourism. 

In total, the report projects that new economic activity across Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties could total somewhere between $20.5 billion and $25.4 billion and add around 126,000 and 152,000 jobs to the economy.

A second less conservative methodology employed by the researchers estimates the overall economic output could be even higher, between $35.4 and $40.6 billion and up to 224,000 new jobs.

“ Together, they provide a responsible range, not an exaggerated promise,” Stephen Cheung, CEO of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, said at a news conference announcing the report on Tuesday. “ If we work together with intention, the Games can leave Los Angeles with more than unforgettable memories. They can leave us with stronger businesses, greater opportunities, and a more connected regional economy.”

Despite the 2028 Games being advertised as a "no-build" Olympics, the biggest chunk of spending laid out in the report is on capital projects, including the $2.6 billion L.A. Convention Center renovation, billions in LAX improvements, major transit projects like Metro ExpressLanes on the 105 Freeway, and venue renovations, such as upgrades to Rose Bowl Stadium.

The report also estimates that around $5.7 billion of LA28’s spending will be in the five county region. LA28 has a $7.1 billion budget and has pledged to keep 75% of its spending in the Greater L.A. area, and put 25% toward small businesses.

“ That economic impact is going to be felt far and wide and across Los Angeles, as well as the Southern California region,” LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said Tuesday.

The report is the second economic analysis forecasting the effects of the 2028 Games to come out this month. A separate report submitted to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors in early September estimated that the Games would produce more than $13 billion in direct spending and a total economic output of $19.2 billion in Los Angeles County alone.

The same report also laid out the potential uneven distribution of economic benefits to the region, including limited benefits for Olympic venue sites that are not tourist destinations and parts of Los Angeles being excluded from the Games altogether.

HR&A Advisors, the consultant group that put the report together, identified Carson, Pomona, the City of Industry and Exposition Park as locations that are hosting Olympic events, but that could end up being “passthrough areas.”

“Although these areas may be active during the day, they may struggle to capture spending from visitors who pass through but do not spend money outside the venue,” the report states.

The county report also questioned what economic benefits will flow to parts of L.A. County that will be disconnected from Olympic and Paralympic activities, like Antelope Valley and Southeast Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the analysis found that L.A.’s typical tourist destinations — including downtown L.A., Old Town Pasadena, downtown Long Beach and the Venice Boardwalk — can expect to be active areas for economic activity during summer 2028.

The Palisades and Eaton Fires last year destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles County. Thousands more were left standing, but choked with toxic fire residue.

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills that will make California the first state in the nation to establish smoke damage testing and cleaning standards for insurance companies.

Assembly Bills 1642 and 1795 will require insurers to test for smoke damage, cover the cost of cleaning contaminants, and keep paying for a homeowner’s alternative living expenses until the home is found safe to reoccupy.

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control will have until the end of 2028 to develop testing and cleaning standards for lead and asbestos, and until the end of 2029 to set rules for heavy metals and other pollutants.

Reaction to the bill

According to the state Department of Insurance, property owners filed 13,000 smoke damage claims for standing homes after the January 2025 fires. While insurers have covered testing and cleaning in many cases, other homeowners are still unable to return home as they battle with insurance companies over addressing smoke damage.

In a news release Tuesday, the governor and an author of one of the bills praised the changes to state law.

“These new protections will make insurer obligations clearer and give homeowners more financial flexibility when they need it most,” Newsom said.

Assemblymember John Harabedian said: “Science, not an insurance company’s opinions, will determine whether a home is safe.”

Insurance industry groups had opposed shifting rules and regulation away from the state Department of Insurance and to the Department of Toxic Substances Control.

Altadena residents pushed for change

Testing efforts by a group known as Eaton Fire Residents United found that lead, asbestos and heavy metals were still present in homes even after they were cleaned by professional remediation companies. Jane Lawton Potelle is the group’s executive director.

“California is leading the nation in how to recover safely after an urban wildfire,” she said in a news release about the laws’ passage.

Public health officials said smoke from the L.A. County fires was particularly toxic because it emanated from urban areas. The structures that burned often had lead paint and asbestos insulation.

The fires also destroyed cars, appliances and other human-made materials. This created more pollutants than smoke from fires in rural areas, which mainly burn through vegetation.

LAist covered the push to change smoke damage policies in a recent episode of our podcast Imperfect Paradise, which breaks down what these changes could mean for insurers, homeowners and how California adapts to climate change.