“A direct threat to national security”: Top retired military leaders assail VA's homeless response, backing veterans' lawsuit
The decorated officers draw a direct line between veteran homelessness and recruitment issues at a time when the scope and complexity of global threats has never been higher.
High-ranking, retired military leaders are throwing support behind unhoused veterans fighting the Department of Veteran Affairs in court over its laggardly development of housing on the agency’s West Los Angeles campus.
The former officials — including retired Admiral William H. McRaven, commander of the U.S. special operations who oversaw the 2011 Navy Seal raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden — filed a friend of the court brief this week, urging the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals to reject the VA’s challenge to a landmark order by a federal judge that would have added thousands of units to the agency’s much delayed rollout of 1,200 supportive housing units on the campus.
“The VA’s neglect of homeless veterans in Los Angeles — the epicenter of the veteran homelessness crisis — is a direct threat to national security,” the brief says. “And it is appropriate for the court to situate the VA’s decisions inside the challenging recruiting landscape that has reduced our military readiness and national security.”
Get the whole story: An epic government scandal hiding in plain sight
Home of the Brave is an award-winning, multimedia feature documenting the unhoused veteran crisis at the West LA VA campus, a 388-acre property deeded to the U.S. government in 1888 specifically to house disabled soldiers. Over the last 50 years, the land was carved up and leased to private interests, while development for veteran housing has been painfully slow. A land grab dating back to the U.S. Civil War, the history of this land is a story bursting with government malfeasance, neglect, graft, and even death.
This newsletter reports on how veterans are fighting to reclaim the land through Powers v. McDonough, a class-action lawsuit filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs. Get updates on the case here:
Joining in the brief are retired General Peter W. Chiarelli, who headed combat operations in Iraq; retired Admiral Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and retired Colonel David W. Sutherland, former special assistant to the chairman focused on warrior and family support.
The leaders argue the U.S. all-volunteer force is facing its most challenging recruitment crises at the same time the scope and complexity of global threats has never been higher. And they draw a direct line between veteran homelessness and recruitment issues.
“The message to the next generation of potential recruits is dispiriting,” the officers’ brief says. “Young people will forgo enlistment because they see a real risk of homelessness and the inability to get care for service-related injuries in their future.”
Referencing the post-9/11 conflicts as “wars of disabilities” marked by high survival rates but “complex battle scars” such as post-traumatic stress, chronic pain, and traumatic brain injuries (or what the Veterans Health Administration calls the “polytrauma clinical triad”) as well as “moral injuries” that can damage veterans’ worldview or core morality, the military leaders recognize the wellness challenges facing soldiers post-deployment. “(Potential recruits) also fear that, upon reintegration, the VA will not provide necessary care for them should they suffer such harms while serving their country,” the filing says.
Watch: The National Press Foundation and Wounded Warrior Project honor Home of the Brave
Last week, Long Lead was honored in Washington, D.C. with the National Press Foundation’s Wounded Warrior Project Award for Excellence in Coverage of Veterans for Home of the Brave.
"Veteran homelessness is an issue that almost everyone — regardless of their political views — agrees should be fixed,” said Long Lead's founding editor John Patrick Pullen, accepting the award on behalf of the team. “Vets shouldn't be homeless."
“They were in a class by themselves,” NPF judges said of Home of the Brave. “They elevated their storytelling in a way that is so compelling.” You can watch the entire night’s program here.
In earlier filings, the VA said federal Judge David O. Carter’s order for an additional thousands of interim units and permanent supportive homes would divert scarce resources from its efforts to end veteran homelessness and create an unsafe environment on the campus. The generals dismissed the financial argument.
”The hardships encountered by homeless veterans themselves far outweigh the economic interests advanced by defendants,” the filing adds.
In a separate friend of the court brief, Vietnam Veterans of America and the Order of the Purple Heart say LA’s recent urban firestorm had exacerbated the region’s veteran homelessness problem. The groups estimate 420 veterans had lost their homes in the Altadena and Pacific Palisades fires, and although those residents may not end up chronically homeless, the general devastation — more than 11,000 residential buildings were torched — has made it harder for veterans already struggling with their HUD-VASH rental vouchers to find housing.
“Veterans who were already homeless now face even more obstacles to finding stable housing than before, including price gouging and limited supply, as the wide swath of newly displaced Angelenos search for replacement housing,” the groups’ brief says. The fires also reduced more veterans to seeking emergency shelter, the groups say, noting that 26 veterans arrived at the WLA campus drop-in center on a single night in January, after the start of the fires.
A hearing is set April 8 in Pasadena, California on the VA appeal, although the court noted it could be cancelled if the judicial panel decides to rule on written briefings only.
Thank you! This is some of the best coverage I have seen on homelessness among vets and also on the political history of the VA. Our veterans and their families deserve so much better from us.