A federal appeals court late Tuesday took the side of the Department of Veterans Affairs by blocking the immediate placement of 100 units of temporary housing for homeless veterans on the 388-acre campus of the flagship West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The action by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay jointly sought by the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on a lower court order to begin moving in 100 units of modular housing as the first step in an ambitious plan to house the estimated 3,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles by 2030.
In granting the stay, the 9th Circuit scheduled a hearing in the case for next April, which would effectively hand the decision on whether to go forward in rejecting the housing plan for homeless veterans endorsed by federal District Judge David O. Carter to former Rep. Doug Collins, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to head the VA.
In a bitter statement responding to the 9th Circuit’s grant of the stay, Mark Rosenbaum, one of the pro-bono lawyers representing the homeless veterans in Los Angeles, noted that the VA had a budget of $407 billion while claiming a lack of funding for temporary housing.