The federal government has agreed to
settle a lawsuit accusing the Department of Veterans Affairs of misusing its sprawling West Los Angeles health campus while veterans with brain injuries and mental impairment slept in the streets, people familiar with the agreement said Tuesday.
Under the settlement, the VA will develop a master land-use plan for the campus that identifies sites for housing homeless veterans. Further details were not available.
Veterans Affairs officials did not respond to requests for comment. VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald has scheduled an announcement at the West Los Angeles Medical Center on Wednesday afternoon.
Old Veterans Guard
Fellow Veterans and Friends of Veterans:
Don't get too excited thinking the aforementioned is "good news" ... it's just breaking news.
The federal government has "agreed to settle" .... what?
Who knows what kind of "master land-use plan" the VA will develop .... where's the unbiased oversight and Veteran input to guarantee the plan will be solely for the greater good of our war-injured and homeless Veterans and not for special interests?
There's no mention of evicting the nine illegal occupants that caused Los Angeles to become our nation's capital for homeless Veterans.
Expect a lot of double talk by VA Secretary McDonald at tomorrow's press conference because he still has to answer to the wealth and power of the Brentwood and West LA elite.
Let us pray that the Media has the courage to ask Secretary McDonald the tough questions and demand honest answers.
The last two sentences of the Times' article spells out the true, defiant, self-serving and self-righteous local VA officials...
protesters have urged the VA to expand permanent housing on the property. local VA officials, however, countered that veterans prefer to live in housing scattered through the region, rather than clustered at the west l.a. site.
Really?
If the VA local officials already know what all homeless Veterans prefer, then it means they've already talked to them so what's the point in tomorrow's homeless count in West Los Angeles?
Unless the gang of nine illegal occupants are evicted posthaste, and an emergency Humanitarian Relief Project built just as quickly as the illegal occupiers vacate the premises, Veteran homelessness will compound.
Warehousing all homeless Veterans alike in "housing scattered through the region," whether they have disabilities or not, will simply prove that the VA local officials are incompetent and clueless when it comes to providing proper housing and care for our war-injured Veterans.
All they are trying to do is get them off the street ... into ramshackle apartments .... in seedy neighborhoods ... run by slumlords ... "
out of sight, out of mind."
This kind of abusive and inhumane treatment of our disabled and homeless Veterans by the VA is what contributes to the 22 Veteran suicides every day across the USA.
Unless Secretary McDonald completely cleans house at the Los Angeles VA and brings in fresh new thinking, he will become the problem instead of the solution. And that includes keeping non-Veterans like Bobby Shriver, Zev Yaroslavsky, Henry Waxman and other clueless politicians from having any input with the master land-use plan since they have already failed badly over the past decade.
Albert Einstein forewarned that you cannot solve your problems with the same minds that created them.
It's time to move forward with new thinking for the 21st Century.
Attached (see below) is the multi-faceted plan of the Old Veterans Guard offering a new and bold vision.
What's yours plan?
More importantly, what's the plan of the VA?
Join us for our 358th consecutive Sunday Rally to "Save Our Veterans Land" and to "Bring Our Homeless Veterans HOME."
God Bless America and the Veterans Revolution!
Old Veterans Guard Plan (pdf)
