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New housing opens on VA campus amid lawsuit appeal
The VA opened its newest building for homeless veterans on the West LA Campus, while the VA has also appealed a ruling to build more temporary housing.
LOS ANGELES - The Department of Veteran Affairs celebrated the opening of a new building at its West LA campus Thursday, which aims to get homeless veterans off the streets. But the celebration comes as a mixed message, days after the VA appealed a judge's ruling to create more temporary housing for veterans.
The department held a ribbon cutting for MacArthur Building A, which has 75 permanent units that will give homeless veterans like Drake Levarette a home far from Skid Row. Lavarette moved in two weeks ago.
"It's a different world," said Levarette. "I'm a Christian now, [I] don't do drugs anymore."
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Judge orders more housing for military veterans on West LA campus
But as the VA celebrates housing veterans like Levarette, they're also appealing a court order that would have housed more than 100 other veterans in a matter of months.
Rob Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran, called it "ironic." Reynolds is part of the legal battle trying to get the VA to provide more housing for homeless veterans on the West LA campus, and get non-VA entities using the land — like the Brentwood School and UCLA — to give the land back.
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"What we were trying to do is get temporary housing immediately, where you could have vets come and live there in the interim until these new units are built," Reynolds said.
PREVIOUS: Veterans file lawsuit demanding permanent housing for homeless Los Angeles vets
In October, Judge David Carter ordered the VA to lock up UCLA's Jackie Robinson Stadium, to allow for modular units. The VA appealed the order on Friday.
"The VA is arguing that it would cause them irreparable harm to pay for these modular units when the only irreparable harm is to the homeless men and women who served our country that are on the streets of Los Angeles," Reynolds said.
Robert Merchant, the Director of the VA's West LA Medical Center, said that while he couldn't go into details on the case, the department was meeting the demand for housing. "We're honoring our commitments," Merchant said. "…We are making extraordinary progress."
"The VA was supposed to have 770 housing units constructed by 2022," Reynolds said. "Here we are in 2024. Ther are only 307."
MacArthur Building B is scheduled to open next year.
In terms of lawsuit, the case now goes to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The VA is arguing that the cost of the proposed modular units comes from the general budget, which could then in turn come at the expense of of veterans on other VA campuses.