By FRED SHUSTER
A federal judge on Wednesday rejected UCLA’s bid to stall an emergency order for the construction of veterans housing on parking lots next to the university’s now-shuttered baseball stadium on Veterans Affairs grounds in West Los Angeles.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter previously ordered the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to immediately begin designing and procuring temporary housing to be constructed on the paved parking lots on the VA campus, including those adjacent to UCLA’s Jackie Robinson Stadium.
Carter’s Oct. 7 emergency order held that “with fall and winter approaching and with thousands of homeless veterans still living on the streets, an emergency exists.”
The judge wrote Wednesday that the situation requires “immediate and streamlined action in order to build and make ready for occupancy temporary supportive housing on (the) VA campus as soon as possible.”
The developments stem from the month-long trial in August of a lawsuit lodged in Los Angeles federal court against the VA by a group of unhoused veterans with disabilities challenging land lease agreements and seeking housing on the campus for veterans in need, many of whom are homeless or must travel for hours to see their doctors. The judge, an 80-year-old Vietnam war vet, found for the veterans.
During the non-jury trial, the VA argued that it is out of space on its 388-acre campus, and that the lack of available acreage precludes any increase to the 1,200 housing units the agency promised to open by 2030. VA attorneys alleged that any relief ordered by the court would burden the department financially and deprive it of the flexibility needed to solve veteran homelessness.
Ultimately, the court found that veterans are entitled to more than 2,500 units of housing at the campus. After finding that land-use agreements with UCLA’s baseball team, the affluent Brentwood School, an oil company, and other private interests on the West Los Angeles campus were illegal, Carter terminated the leases.
The court is currently devising “exit strategies” for former tenants in order to ensure the land — including 10 acres leased to UCLA and 22 acres contracted to the Brentwood School — is put to a use that principally benefits veterans.
The judge recently directed the VA to build 750 units of temporary housing within 18 months and to form a plan to add another 1,800 units of permanent housing to the roughly 1,200 units already in planning and construction under the settlement terms of an earlier lawsuit.
Carter held that for years the VA — budgeted at $407 billion annually — has “quietly sold off” land badly needed for homeless military veterans.
UCLA remains locked out of the stadium on the VA’s grounds. The university’s team was recently practicing at athletic fields throughout the San Fernando Valley.
Attorneys for the university recently sought to intervene in the lawsuit and delay construction of temporary housing on stadium parking lots — a motion filed by the university after veterans’ claims challenging UCLA’s lease were litigated by the court.
“Allowing a late-stage intervention at this point would undermine a carefully negotiated plan and harm those who stand to benefit from the relief already underway,” the judge wrote in the 18-page order denying the motion. “This harm is not just to the parties, but to veterans who have been suffering from mental and physical disabilities, homelessness, and 13 years of litigation.”
The judge wrote, “UCLA seeks to relitigate issues that have already been resolved, reopen a case that has already been litigated, and stall the collaborative process the parties have tediously worked towards. Most crucially, UCLA’s delay prejudices the disabled veterans that brought this lawsuit and the thousands of other disabled veterans that VA serves and stand to benefit from increased housing on the West L.A. VA Campus. Their decision to wait until the litigation reached a critical and late stage is a strategic choice — not the outcome of surprise.”
Carter set a hearing for Friday in downtown Los Angeles to discuss the VA’s preferred modular housing options