It was a great day over at the West L.A.VA Campus on January 28.
It was a year almost perfectly to the day when both parties to a lawsuit between the ACLU and the VA was settled in favor of attempting to work out a friendlier approach to providing more housing and services to homeless veterans in the area.
A year ago, the then-new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald made a lot of promises about how quickly the VA would come up with a plan to address the issues that had been vexing the VA for decades: management problems, questionable leases, lack of services for veterans in need.
The promises, at the time, seemed almost unreal – not because they were all that dramatic – but because we had all become so used to the idea that the VA was not all that interested in helping homeless veterans.
Secretary McDonald indicated a desire and willingness to try and turn a rather huge aircraft carrier on a dime. The lawsuits would be dropped, the campus revamped, the money raised, leases erased, the services provided. But it all had to start with a plan.
A year later, the Master Plan is now done, a matter of public record, viewable online. Congressman Ted Lieu and Senator Dianne Feinstein have submitted bills paving the way for more housing on campus – and for the money required to make the huge changes envisioned.
Meantime, Brentwood School and UCLA have worked hard to prove to the VA’s satisfaction that they can really can and will provide additional services to veterans that will justify their continued use of land leased from the VA. UCLA has the Jackie Robinson baseball stadium; Brentwood School has a wonderful athletic facility.
UCLA will now offer millions of dollars worth of medical, legal, and other services to veterans each year; Brentwood School is now allowing veterans to use the school’s swimming pool. They were always welcome to do so, according to Brentwood School, but there hadn’t been the follow up from the VA side.
Brentwood Village, led by Jennifer Wenger-Turchen and Marcie Polier Swartz, are working to make Brentwood Village a “Village for Veterans.” Merchants in the Village are working on plans to hire veterans and make the Village far more veteran-friendly. In return, Brentwood Village seeks to have continued access to parking lots in the area, built on VA land.
Which brings us back to January 28, when Secretary McDonald returned to the VA in Brentwood to make clear he was keeping his promises. Many involved in this effort – Mayor Eric Garcetti, Congressman Lieu, Bobby Shriver, Ron Olson, Flora Gil Krisiloff, Carolina Barrie, Vince Kane and many others – were there.
Secretary McDonald provided a progress report, including news that many formerly homeless veterans are now safely residing on campus (and many more now have upgraded HUD vouchers that can be used to rent apartments).
Plans for the campus were outlined, including approximately 1,200 housing units and the West L.A. VA’s new director, Ann R. Brown, was introduced.
McDonald made clear this was just the beginning, and that all the new plans merely represented a blueprint to follow – and that the hard work remains ahead.
Nevertheless, the mood was very upbeat and attendees, who numbered in the hundreds, seemed more convinced than ever that good things will continue to happen at the VA.
In talking to many Brentwoodians, my sense is that doing more for veterans will now become a real community effort, supported by all. The VA is everyone’s good cause.
This probably should have happened years ago, but as many Brentwood residents, merchants, and leaders of various institutions have noted, they tried to reach out to the VA before but met with little enthusiasm or organizational ability to respond in kind.
That seems to all be changing now.
