LOS ANGELES (CN) — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a federal judge's order that calls on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to build 1,800 permanent housing units and 750 temporary ones for veterans with severe disabilities and mental illnesses on the federal agency's West Los Angeles Campus.
While the unanimous decision by the three-judge panel reversed some of aspects of last year's injunction by U.S. District Judge David Carter in a class action brought by unhoused veterans, it preserved the key demand to provide housing for them on the 388-acre campus in one of LA's wealthiest neighborhoods.
"This is a complete victory," said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for the vets. "It's the best holiday gift and will mean the end of homelessness for veterans in LA."
At a hearing in April, the appellate judges had expressed some skepticism about the sweeping injunction issued last year by Carter, an 81-year-old Vietnam veteran appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton.
However, their opinion largely embraced Carter's findings that Veterans Affairs had strayed from its mission to care for those who served in the military as President Abraham Lincoln promised,
"There are now scores of unhoused veterans trying to survive in and around the greater Los Angeles area despite the acres of land deeded to the VA for their care," U.S. Circuit Judge Ana de Alba, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in the court's decision. "Rather than use the West Los Angeles VA Grounds as President Lincoln intended, the VA has leased the land to third party commercial interests that do little to benefit the veterans."
Veterans Affairs over the years has leased out large chunks of the campus, including to the University of California, Los Angeles, which built the Jackie Robinson Stadium for its baseball program, as well as a practice field and parking lot, on a 10-acre parcel of the grounds. The private Brentwood School has leased 22 acres of the campus where it built its athletic facilities.
In addition, Bridgeland Resources LLC, an oil company, has a lease to pump oil from underneath the VA campus.
But while the campus' capacity to house veterans has dwindled since the 1970s, it still hosts a medical center that is the premier health care facility for veterans in Southern California and, according to appellate panel's ruling, is often described as the best of its kind in the nation.
The medical center includes a main hospital, research facilities, two nursing homes and provides, the panel said, some of the best treatment for serious mental illness, traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
As a consequence, many veterans who can't afford to live in or near the exclusive Brentwood neighborhood but who rely on the medical center for their essential care, started to live in campers and tents on the surrounding streets in what became known as "veterans row."
In his ruling last year, Carter also ordered Veterans Affairs to cancel its leases with UCLA, Brentwood School and Bridgeland, and he forbade the department to enter into new lease negotiations with them.
The appellate panel, however, concluded that only the leases to Brentwood School and Bridgeland were unlawful under the
West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016 — a statute that stipulates the kind of lease activity that is permitted on the campus — and could be voided. The veterans had challenged the UCLA lease only through a charitable trust claim, but the panel reversed Carter's finding for the plaintiffs on that claim.
As a result, the panel said, UCLA's appeal was moot.
As to Carter's prohibitions on Veterans Affairs renegotiating the leases, and a subsequent order requiring VA to enter into a settlement with Brentwood School, the panel said the judge went too far.
"The district court’s reasoning for imposing such a broad injunction is certainly understandable because the VA maintained the position, throughout the trial, that there was no available space for the construction of housing on the campus," de Alba said.
"But plaintiffs’ harms are remedied by voiding the leases and allowing the VA to renegotiate them, if they can be brought into compliance with the Leasing Act," the judge added. "This creates the right balance between remedying plaintiff’s injuries and not limiting the VA’s options."
Representatives of the U.S. Justice Department, which represent the Veterans Affairs defendants in the appeal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan, a George W. Bush appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Roopali Desai, a Biden appointee, also presided on the panel.
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