Sounds Great - But Isn't
This past week the Veterans Administration unveiled their plans for "transforming" the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center Campus. The plan calls for construction of 1,200 permanent housing units for disabled and traumatized veterans and 700 temporary housing units for homeless veterans; according to an article in the Los Angeles Times.
Sounds great. Problem solved. Except it isn't.
18 months ago, Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote about the problems at the Cal-Vets Home already built on the West LA VA campus. Not much has changed in terms of completing this project.
The settlement that was reached in the lawsuit filed against the VA back in 2011 required that non-veteran use of the 388 acres of the West LA campus be "curtailed" but it appears that the use of Jackie Robinson Stadium by UCLA and the Brentwood School athletic facilities on the VA grounds will continue. What isn't clear in the news coverage of the release of the new "blueprint" for use of the campus is whether or not these tenants of the VA will continue to use these facilities for rents that are well below the market rate for such prime real estate.
The original gift of the real estate on which this campus sits was to providing housing to veterans. Not to rent space to park buses. Not to provide 20th Century Fox with a location to store sets. Not to be home to the home games of the UCLA Bruins baseball team.
I can only imagine how the NIMBY neighbors of the West LA VA campus will rise up in outrage over the possibility of hundreds more homeless veterans taking up residence on a long-term basis right next to their million-dollar dwellings.
Considering how the low level of esteem for the VA in the minds of most Americans given the revelations of malfeasance involving the wait for care of veterans, and the allegations that many men and women died while waiting for that care; is this the right time for breaking yet another commitment? I think not.
Sounds great. Problem solved. Except it isn't.
18 months ago, Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote about the problems at the Cal-Vets Home already built on the West LA VA campus. Not much has changed in terms of completing this project.
The settlement that was reached in the lawsuit filed against the VA back in 2011 required that non-veteran use of the 388 acres of the West LA campus be "curtailed" but it appears that the use of Jackie Robinson Stadium by UCLA and the Brentwood School athletic facilities on the VA grounds will continue. What isn't clear in the news coverage of the release of the new "blueprint" for use of the campus is whether or not these tenants of the VA will continue to use these facilities for rents that are well below the market rate for such prime real estate.
The original gift of the real estate on which this campus sits was to providing housing to veterans. Not to rent space to park buses. Not to provide 20th Century Fox with a location to store sets. Not to be home to the home games of the UCLA Bruins baseball team.
I can only imagine how the NIMBY neighbors of the West LA VA campus will rise up in outrage over the possibility of hundreds more homeless veterans taking up residence on a long-term basis right next to their million-dollar dwellings.
Considering how the low level of esteem for the VA in the minds of most Americans given the revelations of malfeasance involving the wait for care of veterans, and the allegations that many men and women died while waiting for that care; is this the right time for breaking yet another commitment? I think not.
posted by me at 5:49 PM
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