In a hard-hitting, sometimes-shocking ruling that blasts the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for “turning its back” on the disabled veterans it was designed to help, a federal judge Friday ordered additional housing for veterans on the agency’s West Los Angeles campus.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter also determined that the department has been illegally leasing portions of the campus to a private school, UCLA’s baseball team, an oil company, and other private interests.
In the 125-page ruling, Carter wrote that the “cost of the VA’s inaction is veterans’ lives.”
The judge’s findings were issued Friday following trial of a lawsuit lodged in Los Angeles federal court against the VA by a group of unhoused veterans with disabilities, challenging land lease agreements and seeking housing on the campus for veterans in need, some of whom are homeless or must travel for hours to see their doctors.
Over the past five decades, Carter wrote, the VA in West L.A. “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.”