VA Opens New Building on West LA Campus, Providing 74 Additional Units of Housing for Homeless and At-Risk Veterans

All units are fully furnished for new Veteran residents. The building offers a community garden, dog park, gym, walking paths, and a business center. Veterans moving in today were greeted by welcome baskets filled with apartment essentials. 

With the opening of this building, there are now 307 Veteran housing units open on campus, and construction is underway on seven additional buildings that will provide another 461 units. In addition to the West LA VA Medical Center campus, Veterans are housed in communities throughout the entire greater Los Angeles area.  

This new building is part of VA’s comprehensive efforts to provide housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. So far this fiscal year, VA has provided 1,647 homeless Veterans in Los Angeles with permanent housing — the most of any city in America (for the third year in a row) and exceeding VA’s FY 2024 goals for this region by 2.6%. Of those housed this fiscal year, 93.4% have not returned to homelessness. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s recent Point-in Time count revealed a 22.9% reduction in Veterans experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles between 2023 and 2024. 

“This is another major milestone in the transformation of the historic West Los Angeles VA Medical Center into a vibrant and supportive community for formerly homeless Veterans and their families,” said VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS) Medical Center Director Robert Merchant. “Alongside our partners, we have been working tirelessly to get the Veterans of Los Angeles off the streets and into homes of their own. With this building opening, 74 more Veterans will have a fresh start with the support and services they’ve earned and deserve.”

The development of permanent supportive housing on the West LA VA Medical Center campus is facilitated through VA’s Enhanced-Use Lease Program, which serves as VA’s mechanism to provide permanent supportive housing for Veterans experiencing homelessness and their families. Through this program, VA enters into a long-term ground lease with a non-VA entity, which finances, develops, renovates/constructs, and operates the housing. 

For 671 MacArthur Avenue, VA entered into a lease with The Core Companies, with supportive services provided to residents by clinical staff from VA and New Directions for Veterans. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program is the primary means through which homeless and at-risk Veterans access EUL housing, as well as other housing in the community. HUD-VASH is a partnership between HUD, which provides subsidized vouchers, and VA, which provides supportive services and case management.

In the past, Veterans receiving service-connected disability income from VA were sometimes disqualified from housing based on exceeding Area Median Income (AMI) limits tied to the units. VA recognized that this excluded some of the most vulnerable Veterans, and worked with counterparts in the city, county, and state, as well as in HUD and U.S. Treasury, on a revision to this rule.  

Last month, HUD and VA announced policy changes to exclude service-connected disability income when determining eligibility and U.S. Treasury recently released similar policy guidance. VAGLAHS looks forward to working with local Public Housing Authorities and developers to implement this change at the West LA VA Medical Center campus. 

Nationally, VA has housed 43,116 Veterans experiencing homelessness, surpassing its FY 2024 goal to house 41,000 Veterans one month before the end of the fiscal year. Ending Veteran homelessness is a top priority of VA and the entire Biden-Harris Administration, and the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness in the U.S. has fallen by over 4% since early 2020 and by more than 52% since 2010

If you are a Veteran in greater Los Angeles experiencing homelessness, call the temporary housing hotline at 310-268-3350, Monday - Friday 7:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. If you need shelter outside of normal business hours, please call Volunteers of America (available 24/7) at 213-623-8580.