Homeless vets languish in LA's streets, while court, White House orders lag
One year after a group of unhoused veterans prevailed in a lawsuit against the VA, the government still has not improved housing access on the West LA VA campus.
The Veterans Row homeless encampment on San Vicente Boulevard, outside the West LA VA campus on Aug. 30, 2021. Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty
This past July, Los Angeles County announced that, for a second consecutive year, the area saw an overall decline in homelessness. According to the 2025 homeless count from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), 4% fewer people lived on the county’s streets compared with the previous year. The census, taken annually, is crucial in addressing the area’s housing crisis. But there’s one key demographic missing in the current dataset, one that was prominent in the 2024 homeless count: the number of unhoused veterans.
“There’s some internal dispute between LAHSA and the VA,” says Rob Reynolds, an LA-based Iraq war veteran and veteran’s advocate. “That's why the numbers haven’t been released. LAHSA’s numbers are higher than the VA’s, and LAHSA’s numbers show a slight increase [in unhoused veterans] since last year.”
In 2024, LAHSA reported 3,410 homeless vets lived on the county’s streets. The VA has claimed that that number was inflated because it included people who falsely identified as veterans. The federal agency has asked LAHSA to address this issue in the 2025 count.
LAHSA’s 2025 homeless census was further complicated by the devastating LA wildfires, which occurred during the counting process and undoubtedly made homelessness worse for veterans and civilians alike.
The data methodology issues are playing out at the same time that the courts and policymakers are pushing for more housing development. Last fall, a federal judge ordered the VA to build more units on the agency’s West LA campus. In May, the president issued an executive order to build even more housing. (Neither order has yet resulted in shovels hitting dirt.) Separately, a puzzling scandal of bureaucratic dysfunction has resulted in thousands of housing vouchers going unused.
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.
The Home of the Brave newsletter reports on how veterans are fighting homelessness through Powers v. McDonough, a class-action lawsuit filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs. Get updates on their case delivered to your inbox here:
The status of the veterans’ class action lawsuit against the VA
LA’s unhoused veterans have brought two lawsuits against the VA: Valentini v. Shinseki, a land misuse lawsuit that was decided in favor of the veterans in 2013, and Powers v. McDonough, a class-action discrimination lawsuit that also saw the veterans prevail, this time in September 2024.
The Obama administration appealed the Valentini v. Shinseki decision, shocking everyone, but in January 2015 the parties reportedly agreed to a settlement — ultimately a controversial agreement full of carveouts for non-veteran organizations — that led to a “Master Plan” to develop veteran housing on the West LA VA campus. The Master Plan was full of goals and deadlines that the VA subsequently and repeatedly missed, while third-party groups developed and used parcels with ease.
Meanwhile, veterans continued to sleep on the streets, most notably on the sidewalk of San Vicente Boulevard where the Veterans Row homeless encampment cropped up during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. During the first Trump administration, homeless veterans wanted to camp on the 388-acre property to take shelter near the medical services they relied upon, but the VA initially wouldn’t allow it and later put significant restrictions on vets who took shelter there.
In response, the veterans set up a row of tents on the sidewalk surrounding the campus. In April 2020, the government relented and began setting up infrastructure for tents and other makeshift shelters, but conditions were inadequate and undesirable to the veterans. They continued to camp on the sidewalk outside the campus until late 2021, after two unhoused veterans died in the encampment. In November 2022, the veterans filed Powers v. McDonough, a class-action lawsuit alleging housing discrimination.
“Los Angeles is the homeless veteran capital of the United States,” wrote Judge David O. Carter in a summary judgement in favor of the class in July 2025, a statement that closely mimicked the opening lines of Home of the Brave.
“Over the past five decades, the West LA VA has been infected by bribery, corruption, and the influence of the powerful and their lobbyists, and enabled by a major educational institution in excluding veterans’ input about their own lands,” Judge Carter wrote in a fiery September 2024 ruling in the case. Carter went on to invalidate third-party lease agreements with local education juggernauts UCLA and The Brentwood School, issue a permanent injunction against the VA and demand that the department build more housing — as well as quickly erect emergency shelter for veterans.
“The West LA VA has been infected by bribery, corruption, and the influence of the powerful and their lobbyists, and enabled by a major educational institution in excluding veterans’ input about their own lands.” — Judge David O. Carter
But like the Obama administration in Valentini v. Shinseki, the Biden administration appealed the judge’s ruling in Powers v. McDonough. However, the appellate proceedings began on January 23, 2025, three days after President Biden’s term ended, and despite Donald Trump campaigning on a plan to reallocate federal money used for immigrant humanitarian aid to shelter and treatments for homeless veterans, the new administration maintained the VA’s appeal of Powers v. McDonough.
When asked why the Trump administration was maintaining the appeal despite its stated support of unhoused veterans and an executive order to house them at the West LA VA, Veterans Affairs press secretary Pete Kasperowicz did not answer the question.
On April 9, a three-judge panel heard final arguments in the appeal, saying they were weighing an “incapable” VA against a judge acting like a “king.” Their ruling was expected over the summer, but still hasn’t been issued.
Watch: “The Promised Land”
In the National Magazine Award-nominated documentary short “The Promised Land,” Bronze Star Army veteran and documentary filmmaker Rebecca Murga provides an unflinching look at LA’s homeless veteran crisis, letting unhoused heroes provide a street-level view of what life is like when your government leaves you behind.
Learn more about these veterans, their lives, and their struggles, watch “The Promised Land” today.
The status of Trump’s executive order for homeless veterans
“Our goal is to turn the campus into a beacon of hope and a destination for homeless Veterans from across the nation who can travel there to find housing and support and start their journey back to self-sufficiency,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in a statement accompanying the May 9 order.
The executive order also instructs the VA secretary to restore accountability at the department “by taking action against individuals who have committed misconduct and investigating and rectifying the previous administration’s decision to rehire and reinstate back pay for employees previously fired for misconduct.”
“With this executive order, VA will become the most accountable agency in the entire federal government.” — VA Secretary Doug Collins
The White House order came amidst a flurry of federal staffing cuts brought on by the Elon Musk-helmed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A new program introduced by President Trump in his second term, DOGE initially aimed to reduce the VA workforce by more than 15%, which represented around 80,000 employees. This caused alarm among veterans and VA staffers, especially as gains in veteran housing had been made in recent years. In July, the VA revised its plan and announced it would seek to reduce its staffing by 30,000 employees instead.
To be sure, the National Center for Warrior Independence has ambitious goals to address veteran housing in the coming years. But in the short term, the Trump administration has enacted an array of policies that seemingly make it harder to house veterans. These included gutting the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, ordering the suspension of the Veterans and Community Oversight and Engagement Board (which oversaw implementation of the West LA VA’s master plan), and opposing the End Veteran Homelessness Act.
Another section of the executive order requires the secretary of Housing and Urban Development use vouchers to support homeless veterans in LA and around the U.S. This is a practice that had long been in use for managing veteran housing in LA, and according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, thousands of housing vouchers have been going unused as vets continue to live on LA’s streets. When asked why this was occurring and what the government’s plans for remedying the problem, VA press secretary Kasperowicz didn’t answer the question.
Seeking solutions and to discuss the ongoing housing problems at the West LA VA, Democratic members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs held a roundtable discussion on August 25 in LA. According to Rep. Mark Takano, who chaired the meeting, the Republican House committee members and the VA were invited and declined to send staff to the event. When asked why the VA declined to send staff to the event, VA press secretary Kasperowicz didn’t answer the question.
“I am particularly frustrated by the lack of transparency VA has shown Congress, the public, and veterans about its plans at West LA,” Rep. Takano said at the roundtable. He noted that VA has required anyone working on its housing plan at the West LA VA to sign non-disclosure agreements, “so they cannot talk to anyone — including Congress — about what VA is planning.” Rep. Takano said he requested a list of the people required to sign NDAs, and said that VA had not responded to his request.
The executive order also required that the president be given an action plan for development of the property within 120 days, which was September 6. When asked if the president received the action plan on or ahead of the order’s deadline, VA’s Kasperowicz said that the “implementation of President Trump’s executive order is on schedule.” In the interim, Kasperowicz notes, VA recently announced $818 million in grants to fight veteran homelessness across the country, of which more than $138 million will benefit vets in California.
When asked when the action plan or further information would be made available to the general public, Kasperowicz said “additional announcements will be made in the future.”
“I have yet to see even a preview of that plan,” said Rep. Takano at the roundtable discussion. “VA has refused to meet with my staff and brief them on anything related to West LA since January of this year.”
Watch: “The West LA VA Campus Roundtable
How LA became “the homeless veteran capital of the United States”
The history of the West LA VA is rich and wild — Part Two of Home of the Bravesummarizes its early days well. It began just weeks before the end of the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, when the president signed a bill establishing the National Asylum (later Home) for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. After that, more than a dozen National Home campuses sprouted up across the U.S.
Decades later, in 1888, hundreds of acres of LA land was donated to the federal government, specifically to house disabled soldiers. Col. Robert Symington Baker, his wealthy landholding wife, Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, and Sen. John Percival Jones donated the massive undeveloped tract and put a specific note in the deed stating, “the Board of Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers were authorized[,] empowered and directed to locate[,] establish[,] construct[,] and permanently maintain a branch of said National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers.” This LA property was unique among the National Homes in that the plot was donated to the government specifically for this purpose — the other Homes had been constructed on existing government land.
The first veteran came to live at the Pacific Branch of the “Old Soldiers Home” in 1888. Over time, the National Home program grew and evolved, becoming what we know today as the Department of Veterans Affairs. By the 1950s, around 5,000 residents called the West LA VA property home.
In 1972, following a lack of funding for repairs from the Nixon administration and the devastating Sylmar earthquake the year prior, the VA ended housing on the campus and evicted the final 1,500 veterans living in the government-provided housing.
“In the 1970s and 1980s, the number of homeless persons increased, as did their visibility,” said a 2015 congressional report on veterans and homelessness prompted by the ongoing homeless veteran crisis in LA. Ironically, the report — now 10 years old — noted “the exact number of homeless veterans is unknown.”
A ruling in the appeal of Powers v. McDonough is expected any time, as is further information on the National Center for Warrior Independence.
