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THE UNHOUSED -The VA claims it wants to house veterans, but not in the ways the Powers court prescribes.
“There's one [unhoused veteran] across the street, one tent across the street from this courthouse today.”
Attorneys for a plaintiff class of unhoused veterans in Powers v McDonough pointed to the American flag-draped tent outside the new federal courthouse on First Street during a hearing on Wednesday, November 13th, two days after Veteran’s Day, objecting to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ motion to stay the district court’s October 11th judgment.
Hours later, the patriotic tent was gone, and a new fence erected where the humble shelter stood for months. Obstructive panels of rented chain link blocked an entire Metro bus stop, attracting a ticket on 11/19 from the City’s Bureau of Street Services Investigation and Enforcement Division, as reported by L.A. TACO journalist Lexis Olivier-Ray. The occupant of the tent, presumably an unhoused veteran, therefore a member of the now-settled Powers plaintiff class, was nowhere to be seen.
A quote obtained by Olivier-Ray from Zach Siedl of Mayor Karen Bass’ office explained that an Inside Safe operation had indeed occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. But with the nearby L.A. Grand Hotel, a Project Roomkey-turned-Inside Safe whose fugitive owner is entangled in corruption with imprisoned former downtown councilman José Huizar, having completed a final “demobilization” months ago, it’s unclear where those affected by the operation ended up.
Inside Safe operations are “sweeps”, as evidenced by their inclusion on CARE/CARE+ Sanitation schedules, and the well-being of the displaced comes secondary to the stunning (in a good or bad way, depending on your perspective) “before” and “after” photos. Accountability at and after these operations is difficult. Olivier-Ray himself was recently handcuffed and placed in the back of a black-and-white LAPD SUV while observing one of these operations as media.
Veterans in LA are not strangers to displacement.
In 2019, 72 veterans were displaced in Echo Park when the VA was outbid on a cluster of cottages operating a safe haven program called “The Billets”. The VA was used to paying Gateways Hospital $1M per year for use of nine residential units on their property, which the VA secured in an annual competitive bidding process. The cottages, located on a residential street, were used for a transitional housing program ran by nonprofit operator Volunteers of America “VOALA”.
In 2019, a mystery bidder’s $1.4M offer topped the VA’s, and the veterans were told to report to Salvation Army’s shelter in Bell. The shelter is eleven miles away from Echo Park, in an old armory the City of Bell acquired in a 1985 trade with the federal government. LA Times’ Gale Holland sympathetically covered The Billets’ closing at the time, but did not disclose the identity of the “mystery bidder”, which may not have been known at the time.
It has since been revealed that the bidder who defeated the VA was in fact LA’s Homeless Services Authority “LAHSA”, which wanted 14 of Gateways’ cottages for a new family shelter. The project secured $500,000 in discretionary homelessness prevention funds from County Supervisor Hilda Solis. Barry Lank wrote about the new shelter opening under operator The Whole Child for The Eastsider on October 9, 2019:
“The project was funded by $1.4 million from the Los Angeles Housing [sic] Services Authority, with a shortfall of around $500,000 being covered by Supervisor Solis’ discretionary Homeless Preventative Initiative funds.”
LAHSA and the VA are the last two entities that should be engaging in a bidding battle that takes 72 veterans off a therapeutic track for permanent housing. It is even more inappropriate that LAHSA were aided by County Supervisor Solis’ discretionary homeless prevention initiative funds. A CPRA to the County CEO for clarification on how much discretion is allowed when allocating homeless prevention funds hasn’t delivered any materials so far, but it’s interesting to observe all of the main public advocates with access to resources for the unhoused instead aligning with gentrification goals of bringing in a younger crowd, and pushing older, disabled people out.
LAHSA is supposed to serve the general unhoused population as well as veterans who can’t or won’t associate with the VA, such as those who are unsheltered in LA anywhere off the VA’s West LA property and those with discharges other-than-honorable. Both LAHSA and the VA have access to federal subsidies through the City and County’s Public Housing Authorities “PHAs”, The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles “The HACLA” and the LA County Development Authority, “LACDA”, respectively.
Indeed, for six years prior to LAHSA’s acquisition of the cottages, the transitional “safe haven” program dubbed The Billets was operated under a “harm reduction” model in which 70% of participants exited to permanent subsidized housing with services facilitated by the use of U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department - Veterans Affairs Supportive Services “HUD-VASH” vouchers.
On the peaceful grounds of Gateways hospital, veterans had been able to keep service animals, have guests and use medical marijuana with a license. They enjoyed their “walkable” neighborhood and became regular patrons of a nearby coffee shop. They voluntarily graduated to permanent housing, an upgrade from the shared Gateways cottages, making room for more veterans in the program, and making good use of federal assistance. When The Billets shut down, HUD-VASH awards seemed to stop as well.
Federal housing support for veterans slowed to a trickle in 2019 and has not recovered.
It used to be that LA City and County’s PHAs, The HACLA and LACDA, could receive referrals from LAHSA and the VA to get veterans permanently housed, as the PHAs manage federal subsidies in the form of Housing Choice Vouchers “HCV” (commonly called “Section 8”) and HUD-VASH vouchers. HUD-VASH data during the six years of The Billets’ operation shows both the City and County’s public housing authorities, The HACLA and LACDA, receiving several hundred vouchers per year while The Billets was in operation from FY13-18:
The City’s public housing authority, The HACLA, received 250 HUD-VASH vouchers in the five-year period from FY19-23, an average of 50/year, with all of them coming in one award in FY22. In the same time period, the County’s public housing authority, LACDA, got 750 vouchers, or 150/year for those five years. For the 11 years prior, FY08-18, the City and County got an average of 700 combined vouchers per year. The City received zero vouchers in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023. For three of the four years for which City didn’t receive a HUD-VASH allotment, 2019, 2021, and 2023, the County also got zero HUD-VASH vouchers.
In 2019, the same year The Billets closed, Los Angeles’ award of HUD-VASH vouchers was zero for the City and County. HUD-VASH vouchers have barely trickled into LA’s housing authorities since.
The City and County of LA were getting a combined 700 vouchers per year, on average, for eleven years, from FY08-18, collecting 7,672 total vouchers. But for the most recent five years for which data is available, the City has only been getting 50 vouchers/year, on average, and the County has been getting an average of 150/year.
The loss of 500 vouchers per year for over five years is nearly equal to the current number of unhoused veterans believed to be on the streets of LA: 3,000. The unavailability of HUD-VASH would have the effect of forcing veterans to access mainstream “Section 8” or rely on attrition, which is when a veteran loses or relinquishes a voucher, which can then be “recycled” by another veteran or family. More realistically, it has the effect of flag-draped tents around the City.
The Raid on the Lake
In March 2021, two years after the 2019 closure of the Billets cottages and just one mile away, tranquil Echo Park Lake resembled somewhat of a war zone. LAPD swarmed in helicopters overhead and formations of riot cops unconstitutionally placed dozens of members of the press including L.A. TACO’s Lexis Olivier-Ray and Spectrum’s Kate Cagle in flexicuffs. They brutally concussed a housed civilian, putting them in the hospital and broke one protestor’s arm. LAPD’s raid of Echo Park Lake, which happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, ultimately displaced around 200 unhoused people, although some temporarily made it into shelter through Project Roomkey at the downtown L.A. Grand Hotel, three miles away, while people nearby in Skid Row were passed over for those same rooms. LAPD’s overkill response cost the City around $2M.
The closure was a violent, expensive and unnecessary show of force, decommissioning the entire park from all public access for two months, and arresting it behind rented chain link fences for more than two years. CD13 Councilman Mitch O’Farrell, whose district included Echo Park and Hollywood, was unseated in 2022. His loss was attributed to unsatisfactory leadership during the pandemic, including his brutal handling of EPL. His successor Hugo Soto-Martinez finally removed Echo Park Lake’s gentrification fences in May 2023. Some speculated that the rental fence was possibly due for return by then, anyway. It’s unclear just how many veterans may have been displaced in the EPL operation, but documented outreach regarding Economic Impact Payments conducted by National Veterans Foundation “NVF” on May 26th, 2021, just two months after the raid, shows that at least one unhoused veteran, Marvin, was found at EPL as soon as it reopened.
LAHSA’s lack of Authority
Heidi Marston, CEO of LAHSA at the time, made an appearance at EPL during the raid. She handed people cardboard boxes to aid in their moves to nowhere (or possibly serve as their new homes?). Knock.la’s Jamie Loftus reported Marston’s delayed reaction, quoting her regrettably musing:
“…it didn’t need to happen this way.”
If only the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority had exercised any actual authority, such as instructing LAPD to stand down, demanding Sanitation back off of their clients while outreach worked to find them housing, attending City Council during LAMC § 41.18 hearings, or opposing the Recreation and Parks Department’s plans to close the public park in a pandemic, things really could have ended differently.
A lot of people showed up in incredible ways to show solidarity with the unhoused of EPL in March 2021. But many people failed the community, too. Marston’s job as the top-paid homeless advocate in the region should have given her a little more confidence to robustly oppose the violence done to her clients rather than wishing things happened differently.
Interestingly, Marston had worked as an executive for the VA prior to coming to LAHSA as a Chief Program Officer just two months before the veterans were removed from The Billets. Marston had worked for the VA in different capacities since 2009 and for a period worked as an assistant to the VA Secretary in DC. Her transition to LAHSA and exit from the VA are both listed as occurring in February 2019 on LinkedIn. Did Marston bring the Gateways contract to LAHSA? If she did, she knew exactly what she was doing, because she would soon be rewarded with a promotion to CEO.
Displacements don’t happen in a vacuum.
Gentrification pressures had been growing for years in Echo Park, with developers exploiting the “substantial remodel” loophole to evict multigenerational families from rent-controlled buildings. The “renoviction” removal mechanism was finally addressed by Housing and Homelessness Committee and City Council in November, thanks to tenant advocacy by Echo Park’s Mohawk Tenants.
Young Mohawk tenant organizer Matthew Mata and his family pleaded not to have to relocate from Echo Park for his senior year of high school. Mohawk’s supporters packed City Hall dressed in red, with some describing through translators during public comment experiences of being threatened with eviction as many as three times in the past few years under the now-closed legal loophole.
The Billets should have been studied and replicated for its ability to accommodate veterans, who some consider to be among the most difficult-to-serve clients because of their complex needs compounded by warranted distrust of the system. By managing to convert the majority of participants into residents of permanent housing, despite post-traumatic stress, serious mental illness and substance abuse, The Billets seemingly overcame the challenge of “acuity” in homelessness services, at least when it came to LA’s veteran population. Acuity has since been contemplated in the LA Alliance for Human Rights v Los Angeles court hearings. Unhoused people “with serious mental illness” are considered inappropriate for City shelters in the settlement. Alliance was filed in March 2020, right at the onset of the pandemic, and settled in 2022. It is overseen by the same judge as Powers, David O. Carter, himself a Vietnam veteran and double UCLA alum.
At the most recent Alliance hearing, the flag-draped tent across from the new federal courthouse was similarly addressed by the plaintiffs, to justify their demand for an evidentiary hearing. It didn’t go over too well, but an audit of spending on homelessness was demanded by the court, which is currently being conducted by firm Alvarez & Marsal and expected to deliver answers by February 2025.
Conflicting understandings of “harm” in court
On November 13th, the VA said it will be irreparably harmed if forced to add 100 modular housing units on-site. Plaintiffs’ lawyers said unhoused veterans (not named plaintiffs, who are now housed) will die. The VA’s lawyers wanted to know which ones, and the plaintiffs’ lawyers pointed to a 2,000 “by-name list” of unhoused veterans who they allege are connected to outreach or services, as well as the flag-draped tent near the courthouse. The West LA VA “Soldier’s Home” currently accommodates only around 300 veterans in housing on its property, and it formally objects to the Court wanting the VA to add 100 more units on-site by February, which would increase its housing capacity to around 400.
Does the VA mean it can’t federally subsidize those proposed units and will be forced to pay “out-of-pocket” for operating them, so it won’t be a profitable venture for the VA? Is that really irreparable harm that can be compared with the physical, mental and mortal costs of homelessness?
The truth is of course murkier than that, as the VA is expressing reluctance to accept what is essentially a packaged deal to implement a controversial Master Plan at the Soldier’s Home which includes retail development. The shopping component, which will open the Veterans’ property in West LA up to the general public, has an expedited timeline of two years, placing it at a higher priority than permanent housing for veterans. The VA may experience irreparable harm if it swaps out one group of illegal tenants (currently UCLA, the Brentwood School, Bridgeland Oil and SafetyPark are occupying the VA on leases that were deemed void by the Court) for another set of leases which also does not principally benefit unhoused disabled veterans and their families.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the defendant in Powers, has a $400,000,000,000 annual budget. If the VA isn’t acting in bad faith by challenging the court’s opinion, it must substantially improve housing conditions for veterans.
The VA can, on its own initiative, take action to better accommodate veterans who live or wish to live at the Soldier’s Home at any time. It can open up Building 22, which once served as a dormitory for veteran families with children. It can identify funding from its own massive budget to replace the Pallet shelters with a more dignified product like a FEMA trailer (what happened to the >600 FEMA trailers Governor Gavin Newsom sent to Los Angeles to shelter unhoused people in January 2020?), 3D printed solutions (a local Culver City company has a promising design), modular homes, or anything else. The VA in West LA could invite Habitat for Humanity to build on-site, allow veterans who are able to build or fix homes for one another through the HUD’s Self-Help Home Ownership “SHOP” program (which grants $25,000 per unit for the creation, acquisition or improvement of “non-luxury” housing units through “sweat equity”). Instead, the experience for veterans who come to West LA in need of housing is consistently a story where the buck is passed to veterans’ nonprofits which receive grants yet have nothing to offer veterans. The practice of privatizing veterans’ housing is wasteful and only destabilizes and deprives veterans of their benefits.
The VA should, first and foremost, strike a deal with UCLA for use or acquisition of the dormitories it built at the VA on the C & H tract on Veterans Avenue, across from the cemetery. It may just find itself in compliance with the Judge’s orders for the creation of both temporary and permanent housing if it can use or acquire those existing dorms.
Rejecting the Master Plan doesn’t have to mean rejecting disabled veterans who are in need of housing and support. In fact, many veterans are themselves actively opposed to the Master Plan or components of it like the public retail mall. If the VA can unite with Veterans by supporting their housing needs, it may also be able to defeat the developers who have advanced so far on a land grab that may soon be impossible to undo.
The VA needs to do whatever it takes to help veterans, as they were expected to do to protect our country.
Additionally, to prevent deaths of veterans this winter, the VA should designate outreach of their own who has access to capital for troubleshooting solutions that directly benefit veterans and their families at and around the West LA VA. They should be able to book hotels, repair RVs, allocate safe parking spaces, upgrade tents and sheds, order medical devices and approve accessibility features as well as improve the old buildings, all from a discretionary account specifically for the purpose of facilitating literal longevity for veterans.
(Ruth (@roofless) writes about homelessness and housing in Los Angeles, drawing from her own experience of living on the streets for seven years. She co-authors a Substack series with USC whistleblower Zachary Ellison, exploring the legal landscape of landlessness and advocating for the civil rights of the unhoused.)
