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VA Facility in West Los Angeles Abandons Homeless Veterans
Lawsuit Challenges VA’s Misuse of Land Given to House Injured Vets
(Los Angeles)- Four homeless veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other disabilities today sued Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and the director of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System for misusing the VA campus in West Los Angeles. They filed suit on behalf of hundreds of other severely disabled homeless veterans in the Los Angeles area. Vietnam Veterans of America joined the four individuals as plaintiff in the suit, which was filed in U.S District Court for the Central District of California.
The land on which the VA campus now sits was deeded to the United States in 1888 for the specific purpose of providing a home for disabled veterans, which it did for nearly 80 years. But the VA has eliminated permanent housing for disabled veterans, many of whom now literally sleep outside its walls, and it now leases portions of the property to private companies, such as a rental car business and Sodexho Marriott for a laundry facility. The VA has not publicly disclosed how much it is being paid for these private deals, which now cover almost 30 percent of the 387-acre campus, or where the money from them is going.
“War can take a serious toll, both physical and emotional, and it is shameful when our wounded warriors return home and are left to live on our streets,” said former Adjutant General of the California National Guard, Maj. General Paul Monroe. “California has an incredible campus that was given to the U.S. government to permanently house our disabled vets. It’s past time we stopped renting it out to private companies and started using it to house and care for those who have sacrificed so much for our country.”
“If they can house Enterprise Rent-A-Car, they can house our homeless veterans,” said Mark Rosenbaum, Chief Counsel of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California. “This is VA-Gate,
because the VA could quite literally end veteran homelessness in Los Angeles if this land were used as it was intended.”
The suit also contends that the VA’s benefits program discriminates against veterans with severe mental disabilities. A robust body of research has established that homeless individuals with severe mental disabilities cannot access necessary medical and mental services without stable living conditions combined with supportive treatment services. Although the VA has recognized the importance of such supportive housing for seriously disabled homeless veterans, it has refused to offer them to Plaintiffs and other disabled veterans in Los Angeles and around the country.
“This lawsuit exposes the truth of how the VA’s policies exclude veterans with serious mental disabilities,” said Melissa Tyner, a staff attorney with Inner City Law Center’s Homeless Veterans Project. “Rather than honoring their sacrifice, VA policies deny access to needed services. As a result, many veterans become homeless.”
Los Angeles is the capital of homeless veterans in the United States. There are an estimated 107,000 homeless veterans nationwide, and by conservative estimates 8,200 live in the Greater Los Angeles area.
“Four presidential administrations have continued to allow the injustice of encroaching on land deeded solely for the purpose of caring for our nation’s disabled veterans. This lawsuit gives us the opportunity to restore integrity to this bequest and allow many more homeless and disabled veterans to live out their years with dignity,” said John Rowan, National President, Vietnam Veterans of America.
“If our nation’s laws are enforced, soldiers who risked their lives on the battlefield won’t be condemned to live in dumpsters or under freeways while land donated to house them is used instead to house a rental car company and a laundry facility for luxury hotels,” said Laurence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and the nation’s preeminent constitutional scholar.
A descendant of the family that donated the land to the government is also a plaintiff in the suit. Plaintiffs and their attorneys are also calling for congressional hearings to investigate the misuse of the West Los Angeles Campus and the VA’s failure to ensure its benefits programs are accessible to seriously disabled veterans.
In addition to the lawsuit, the Plaintiffs and their attorneys are calling for congressional hearings to investigate the misuse of the West Los Angeles Campus and the VA’s failure to ensure its benefits programs are accessible to seriously disabled veterans. The misuse of the West Los Angeles campus is documented in detail in a Position Paper issued in January 2011 by the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation led by artist Lauren Bon, entitled “Preserving a Home for Veterans.”
“The missing link to ensure disabled veterans are helped is on-campus supportive housing. That is what this lawsuit hopes to remedy,” said Ron Olson, of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP
Plaintiffs are represented by Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor; Ronald Olson, of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP; Arnold & Porter LLP; Inner City Law Center; Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor; Massey & Gail LLP; and the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=112258
Posted by Veterans Today on Jun 8 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Editors Picks, Vet News, Veteran Service Organizations, Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Veterans are getting the legal representation they have long deserved. With the ACLU and its battery of pro-bono attorneys from across the nation, coupled with Vietnam Veterans of America as a major Plaintiff, this case will rock the VA from top to bottom.
We must remain vigilant and not sit back and rely solely on this law suit. Continue to write letters to your Congress representative and U.S. Senators. Keep writing and keeping this news in the public eye.
The West LA VA is a dinasour that must be demolished and completely rebuilt.
FINALLY !
There’s been some something fishy going on at the WLA VA for quite awhile and it is finally catching up to them. All the top administrators need to be fired for such massive dishonesty, or retired for their incompetence. And unfortunately, Shinseki did NOTHING to stop or correct it,,,,even after being told about it by MANY people many times. Shameful.
I find it outrageous that so many of our Veterans are homeless today when the VA campus was deeded for the specific purpose of providing a home for disabled Veterans. These men put their lives on the line and this is the thanks they get. I feel that they have been used and then abused (ignored, simply thrown away like garbage). I believe in Justice For Veterans. Veteran’s Administration people, have some decency, have some compassion for our Veterans. How would you feel if one of these homeless Veterans was your father? Would you care then?
I WISH ALL THE DESERVING VETS TO BE TREATED WITH THE UTMOST RESPECT.IF ANY SEGMENT OF OUR COMMUNITIES DESERVE HONOR AND RESPECT OUR VETS SHOULD BE FIRST ON THE LIST UNFORTUNATELY IT APPEARS OUR POLITICIANS DO NOT AND A PITY IT IS
All those Sundays at the Wilshire Va might be paying off now so that donna you know who and her minions at the va security camp will be foreced to examine what they have been doing, namely trampling on the rights of all Veterans with their gestapo tactics. The whole so called police unit should be fired for their actions as well as their video taping of vehicle license plates etc., of honest Veterans who came to assist with the efforts that have been put together every Sunday for many, many months. You listenign donna?
Steve Palmer: Are you watching? This is your victory too !
Robert Rosebrock will become this generations Smedley Butler. Conversely, this will be the VA’s Waterloo.
Today’s LA Times has two articles and a lead editorial on this lawsuit.
This lawsuit never would’ve happened without the Sunday-after-Sunday dedication of the veterans who demonstrate in front of the VA every week.
A special thank you goes to Robert Rosebrock for his important work on spearheading this issue. He proves even one person can make a big difference in the world.
This issue has been going on since the 80′s and finally it is beginning to receive the recognition it deserves. the Brentwood Home Owners Association, Sue Young, Henry Waxman, Brentwood Schools, UCLA and others have had their way with the West LA VA property for far too many years. I am once again proud of my life membership in Vietnam Veterans of America and John Roland for taking up this cause and I feel that the ACLU has finally got something correct in supporting the cause. Robert keep up the good work and thank you for carrying the flag (right side up or upside down).
Hopefully, this will have a chain reaction for other VA facilities that are not being treated as Veteran’s sacred land (such as Sepulveda VA; it’s too late for the one in Chicago that already had some of its land stolen). Our government needs its feet held to the fire. Shinseki also needs to be fired for his mismanagement and non-response to pleas regarding this travesty!
I have been to the West LA Va Hospital a few times and the treatment I received there was sub par at best…
It seems to be to close to the rich and famous in Brentwood and UCLA… And their attitude there sucks as they could care less if your a veteran or not…. They have this ora about them that they are so much better than anyone except themselves, and as far as careing for the homeless goes, to them they are just people looking for a hand out… I have heard it with my own ears how they don’t give a shit about the homless or their care…. If someone doesn’t get fired and replaced over this now that it finally is going to court, than everyone of those SOB’S in Washington, should be fired as well… This discrase has been going on way to long now and it’s time that something positive comes out of this…. We all did our Jobs, and are paying taxes. and damn it it about time our money goes to where it belongs, here at home to help our people instead of over seas and to special interrest…. I’m a proud Combat Veteran, and I support those who have the stones to stand up for us Veterans…
Thank you!!!!!!!
Just when you might think there isn’t anything left for the V A to do to us, They find another way to stab us in the back !!! This atrocity is another in the long line of things the Government has done to hurt the very men and women who have Fought and Died to allow them to even exist !!! When are they going to stop Desicrating the memory of this Country’s Warriors, living and dead, by NOT MISTREATING THE VERY PEOPLE WHO MAKE POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO EVEN HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE IN FREEDOM ????????
ALFRED J SICKLE
President,
Vietnam Veterans of America,
Chapter 391, Sonora, California
What a movement, we can do this! Why hasn’t the VA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) ever investigated this criminal problem? Wait, they are too busy sipping their coffee, starring out their office window, and arresting Vet’s who protested on land that was meant for homeless veterans. This is sickening! OIG is lazy.
I work at the VA. The OIG is lazy. They cherry pick what they want to investigate, mostly easy cases. The OIG takes orders from the VA director. The OIG is driven by management. The agents are located on the same Westwood campus where this is going on and they never questioned “hey why are we building a UCLA baseball field on VA property?” That’s probably why they never made it as real cops.
Do the big guys at the VA have DUAL CITIZENSHIP with a FOREIGN country? Israel runs the US.
The “MESS” that is going on, right now, at the WEST L.A. VA FACILITY, is just ANOTHER reflection of the current overall “MINDSET” of our so-called elected leaders in Congress and THIS present administration.
The very “few” politicians serving in Congress, that are ‘veterans’, are being swallowed up by their fellow cronie ‘globalists’ of BOTH political monopoly parties. MEANWHILE, our un-employed veterans, wounded warriors and just veterans at large that have certain specific needs, are “short-changed” by the inept V.A.
When confronted on the issue, the VA responds back with…”Oh, we are so over whelmed and we are SHORT ON FUNDS”. Really?
As usual, America’s domestic needs and the needs of our VETERANS are taking a real “back seat” and getting really “short changed”, while the un-constitutional, illegal HAND OUTS called “FOREIGN AID” give-aways, to the world (often times even to our ‘enemies’)…’gravey train’, goes on year after year, in the BILLIONS of taxpayers dollars,continues un-checked . Obviously, America’s domestic needs and its VETERANS are NOT a priority! It is a complete WASTE, FRAUD & ABUSE issue.
V.A. man in charge SHINSEKI, is about as ‘dynamic’ as a wet noodle! VA bureaucrats are more interested in their careers, retirements and cush jobs, and their precious ‘titles’ , than the real needs of veterans. This is what I call…the “AMERICA LAST” attitude. “America LAST” attitude trancends into Veterans LAST as well. How come many of us vets are NOT surprised by all of this?
U.S. Army veteran “activist” ROBERT ROSEBROCK & “The OLD VETERANS GUARD”, are the real , true ‘tip of the spear’, in the fight , to SAVE the West Los Angeles Veterans Facility. I encourage ALL other concerned veterans to support them in this worthwhile effort. Recently, the NATIONAL VETERANS COALITION of the Constitution party (www.nvets.org) presented the “AMERICA FIRST” award to Robert Rosebrock for standing up for veterans rights, veterans land, and putting America First. (Putting America First is really about putting VETERANS first!)
If these panty-waisted politicians & bureaucrats can do THIS type of tyranny to the West L.A. VA Facility, they can do it ANYWHERE else in America. ONLY “VETERANS” CAN REALLY SAVE AMERICA.
Other veterans groups, who are NOT afraid of being “politically in-correct” such as the powerful and highly respectful VIETNAM VETERANS of AMERICA, are standing with the ‘Old Veterans Guard’ on this issue.
“Others” need to join in too.
“WE” in the NATIONAL VETERANS COALITION, (NVC) strongly urge ALL of you veterans (regardless of whatever ‘other’ HATS you wear- to really support this struggle against tyanny to veterans, by supporting Robert Rosebrock and the ‘Old Veterans Guard’, in their heroic efforts of SAVING VETERANS LANDS.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, the “Father of our Country” said, ” The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in ANY war, no matter how ‘justified’, shall be directly proportional to how ‘they’ perceive the VETERANS of earlier wars, were TREATED & APPRECIATED by their nation.”
Larry Breazeale, Msgt., USAF Security Forces “retired”,
Vietnam/Desert Storm veteran,
Deputy Sheriff “retired”,
Nat. Chrm. National Veterans Coalition
of the Constitution party, http://www.nvets.org,
Anaheim Hills, California