THE Department of Veterans Affairs held a groundbreaking ceremony this week to open new apartments for homeless veterans on the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center’s sprawling campus — while fighting a court order to build more units.

“Here in Los Angeles, the VA has housed more homeless veterans than anywhere else in the country,” Meg Kabat, VA chief of staff, said Thursday at the ceremony marking the completion of 74 housing units permanent west of Los Angeles. VAMC.

“We are making extraordinary progress” in combating veteran homelessness, Robert Merchant, executive director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, or VAGLAHS, told a local news station in Los Angeles.

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But Merchant sidestepped the reason the VA is appealing a court order from federal District Judge David O. Carter to immediately begin building 750 units of temporary housing for homeless veterans and 1,200 units of permanent housing by 2030.

“I can’t go into the details of the litigation,” Merchant said.

On Carter’s orders, builders were ready to begin moving the first 100 units of modular temporary housing to the West Los Angeles campus earlier this month when the VA and Department of Housing and Urban Development jointly requested a stay. Carter denied the stay, and the VA is now appealing his denial to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

At a hearing on November 7, Carter challenged Justice Department attorney Cody Knapp, who represented the VA and HUD, on why the VA was appealing to block the move to house more people. Homeless veterans. Carter rejected Knapp’s argument that the VA lacked funding to build the first 100 units.

“It’s dangerous, Cody,” Carter said, according to court records. “I think that’s not the legacy your agency wants to write, is it?”

Carter added that “you can’t break the iceberg with a hundred modules and you pretend you don’t have money. Is that really the legacy of this VA?”

“I truly believe veterans are going to die” if they are denied shelter, Carter said.

During a telephone interview, the former Army SPC. Rob Reynolds, who recruited homeless veterans to join the class-action lawsuit that ended up in Carter’s court, noted that Justice Department lawyers cited “the irreparable harm” that would be done to the VA if the Carter’s decisions were followed.

Reynolds, 35, who served in the 10th Mountain Division in Iraq, said in a telephone interview that “it was a big blow to everyone” when the VA appealed Carter’s decision. “The only irreparable harm that is being done is to homeless veterans,” he said.

Amelia Piazza, an attorney with the Public Counsel law firm who represents homeless veterans in the class action, said, “It’s been really disheartening to watch the VA fight a plan to remove 100 veterans from streets of Los Angeles. It’s obvious from our point of view.”

In a telephone interview, Piazza said government lawyers did not challenge Carter’s ruling that the various leases granted by the VA for use of the property on the West Los Angeles campus of 388 acres were void since they violated the original act requiring that the lands could only be used for the benefit of veterans.

Carter earlier this month granted UCLA a reprieve – at least until July 2025 – on the lease for use of its Jackie Robinson baseball stadium and adjacent practice field on West Campus. Los Angeles. Carter had initially ordered the stadium foreclosure when he ordered UCLA’s lease terminated.

Carter agreed to let the UCLA Bruins play at the stadium through the end of the 2025 season in July 2025 after UCLA agreed to pay $600,000 – double the original rent – ​​to the VA.

UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a statement: “Our young men have worked hard and maintained a positive attitude throughout this period of uncertainty, and we are pleased that they will be able to resume their regular practice at the stadium,” the UCLA student said. the Daily Bruin newspaper reported.

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