LOS ANGELES – The Department of Veteran Affairs celebrated the opening of a new building at its West LA campus Thursday, which aims to get homeless veterans off the streets. But the celebration comes as a mixed message, days after the VA appealed a judge’s ruling to create more temporary housing for veterans.
The department held a ribbon cutting for MacArthur Building A, which has 75 permanent units that will give homeless veterans like Drake Levarette a home far from Skid Row. Lavarette moved in two weeks ago.
“It’s a different world,” said Levarette. “I’m a Christian now, [I] don’t do drugs anymore.”
But as the VA celebrates housing veterans like Levarette, they’re also appealing a court order that would have housed more than 100 other veterans in a matter of months.
Rob Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran, called it “ironic.” Reynolds is part of the legal battle trying to get the VA to provide more housing for homeless veterans on the West LA campus, and get non-VA entities using the land — like the Brentwood School and UCLA — to give the land back.