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An annual count in January put the number of homeless veterans across most of Los Angeles County at 2,257, down 26% from the year before. That decline is welcome. It’s harder to explain why veterans have twice had to sue their government over housing on land donated for that very purpose.
In the first suit, filed in 2011, homeless veterans with severe disabilities challenged the VA’s leases to outside groups on the 387-acre West Los Angeles VA campus in Brentwood. They argued that without a place to live near the VA hospital, they couldn’t get the care they needed. The VA settled in 2015. The plan that followed that settlement called for 1,200 homes to be built on the campus.
More than a decade later, the VA is still working toward that goal.
With the work still unfinished, President Trump signed an executive order in May 2025 directing Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to designate a National Center for Warrior Independence on the West Los Angeles VA campus and draw up a new plan to restore its capacity to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans by Jan. 1, 2028.
Trump was right to put a deadline on work that administrations of both parties had long left unfinished. Now a year and a half later, Collins owes veterans a clear account of what has changed because of that order. How many more veterans will have a place to live, when can they move in and who will be there to help them stay housed?
The Pacific Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was established in 1888 to give disabled veterans a place to live among others who’d served. Over time, as the VA shifted its focus to medical care, the hospital south of Wilshire Boulevard continued to treat veterans while the residences to the north fell into disrepair. In 1963, the VA began leasing land on the campus to UCLA for baseball on what later became the site of Jackie Robinson Stadium. In 1999, the VA agreed to let Brentwood School build athletic facilities on another part of the campus. Some disabled veterans who depended on the hospital for care had nowhere nearby to live.
As the VA fell behind on its plan to build 1,200 homes on the campus, veterans sued again. In 2024, a federal judge ordered the VA to provide 1,800 more permanent homes and 750 temporary ones so veterans would have somewhere to live in the meantime. The Biden administration appealed that ruling, arguing in part that the judge had exceeded his authority by telling the VA how much housing to provide.
Rob Reynolds, an Iraq war veteran, has spent seven years helping veterans find housing in L.A. Reynolds told me recently he felt he’d inherited the fight to restore housing at West L.A. from Vietnam-era veterans who believed they’d inherited it from those who served during World War II.
When Reynolds met with Collins in the spring of 2025, the government’s appeal was still pending. Reynolds told me the secretary mentioned an upcoming announcement that would seem to align with what the advocates were trying to accomplish. Reynolds hoped Collins meant the VA would drop the appeal and get on with building the homes.
Instead, Trump signed the housing order, and the government continued its appeal. Even so, Reynolds told L.A. Times in May 2025 that the order was “a huge win for us.” He explained why the president’s acknowledgment mattered: “This land used to be a place for veterans to live, used to be a place of rehabilitation, and it’s not that today.”
Within a month of Trump signing the order, the appeals court asked both sides whether it changed their arguments. The government’s lawyers said it did not, pointing to the order as evidence that the VA was committed to building housing and arguing that the department should decide how to do it. That’s a reasonable position. Having asked the court to trust its judgment, the VA owes veterans a straight answer about what it will build and when.
Four months after Trump signed the order, the VA issued its action plan. Of the 1,065 homes promised in its first phase, 571 were already operating. The VA expected to finish that phase in February 2028, a month after the president’s target date for the campus to have room for up to 6,000 veterans.
In January 2026, the VA told the court it expected to provide 750 to 800 temporary homes on the West L.A. campus by the end of September. Advocates for homeless veterans said the proposed eight-by-eight-foot shelters were too cramped and flimsy to give residents a dignified place to live. By June, as L.A. Times senior writer Doug Smith reported, the VA was seeking bids for up to 260 larger homes on the Great Lawn, a five-acre field on the north campus. Each would have a private bathroom and kitchenette, with completion projected for the following spring.
Though the VA was right to improve the homes, the revised proposal offered roughly 500 fewer places than the department had projected just months earlier, and veterans would have to once again wait longer for them to become available.
VA press secretary Quinn Slaven told me recently that housing capacity on the campus has increased by more than 450 units since Trump took office, and added that the VA is hiring 92 employees, including clinicians, social workers and peer specialists, to serve L.A.’s growing veteran population.
The VA gave itself until Nov. 30, 2025 — nearly a year ago — to estimate what the National Center for Warrior Independence would ultimately cost, including costs of construction, transportation and the staff who would care for residents. That estimate was nowhere to be found in the department’s written responses to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Slaven said the VA would estimate the cost of building the remaining homes following an environmental review that will include public comment. The VA would then use those estimates to seek funding from Congress. He didn’t say whether the VA had completed the broader estimate or how many more veterans the campus expects to have room for by Jan. 1, 2028.
With just over a year to go, Collins owes veterans a straight answer. How many veterans will the West L.A. campus have room for by Jan. 1, 2028? Tell them which homes are paid for, when they can move in and whether the VA has the money to hire the people who will help them stay housed. If the president’s order means veterans can move in sooner, tell them how much sooner. If the VA needs more money to meet the president’s deadline, tell Congress how much and ask for it.
More than 25 years ago, Congress set a 10-year goal for ending chronic homelessness among veterans. Reynolds and the veterans who came before him know what it means to keep doing this work after a deadline passes. They shouldn’t have to wait until January 2028 to learn whether the VA can meet this one.
Jon Duffy is a retired naval officer. He writes about leadership and democracy.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The column argues that the West Los Angeles VA campus was established to house veterans, yet decades of neglected residences and leases to outside organizations left some disabled veterans without nearby housing and care.
- Although the article welcomes President Trump’s deadline to expand housing, it contends that the executive order is not a substitute for specifics: the VA should say how many veterans it will house by January 2028, when residents can move in, and whether construction and support services are funded.
- The piece views the VA’s shift from a proposed 800 small temporary shelters to fewer, larger units with private bathrooms and kitchenettes as an improvement in dignity, but says the smaller project means fewer places and a longer wait. Reporting on the revised plan also noted advocates’ concerns about limited transparency and whether services would keep pace with new housing.[5]
- The article concludes that the VA should promptly explain its costs, timelines, staffing plans and any funding shortfalls to veterans and Congress, rather than leave residents to wait for the deadline to learn whether the plan is achievable.
Different views on the topic
- The VA presents its housing expansion as progress already underway. In congressional testimony, VA official Danielle Runyan said the campus could house 1,377 formerly homeless veterans in January 2026 and projected capacity for 1,670 by year’s end.[2] The department has also described its planned units as clinically driven and said it intends to add thousands more over time.[3]
- The VA’s published master plan sets a goal of at least 1,200 homes for formerly homeless and at-risk veterans and their families, and identifies anticipated PACT Act funding for that effort. That plan provides a concrete funding source for the 1,200-unit goal, though it does not by itself answer how the VA would meet the separate 6,000-person target.[1]
- The administration has argued that the VA, rather than a court, should determine how to deliver housing. However, the Ninth Circuit upheld key parts of an order requiring 750 temporary and 1,800 permanent units, leaving the department with court-ordered obligations alongside its own plans.[4]
- Some lawmakers and homelessness experts have questioned whether the goal of housing 6,000 veterans on one campus is practical, and whether staffing and funding will support that scale. NPR reported that the proposed federal budget included no funding for new housing beds under the pledge and quoted Rep. Mark Takano raising concerns about whether the VA had enough support staff.[6]
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