Los Angeles is home to the largest population of homeless veterans with disabilities, where men, women, and children sleep wherever they can: emergency shelters, transitional housing, hospitals, cars, abandoned buildings, and other outdoor public places. Some require only temporary housing from a few weeks to a few months while they get back on their feet. Others don’t know where to turn for assistance, and some are too ill to know they can ask for help.
The settlement ended a suit accusing the VA of illegally leasing land on the sprawling campus to businesses such as UCLA, a television studio, a hotel laundry, and a parking service.
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The plan will focus on serving all veterans: particularly women veterans and those who are homeless, aging, or severely disabled. Secretary McDonald will appoint a special assistant with the necessary resources and support to oversee the plan’s implementation.
“This agreement offers VA a historic opportunity to build new community relationships in Los Angeles and continue the work needed to end veteran homelessness here,” said Secretary McDonald. “VA is proud of the progress we’ve made in ending veteran homelessness—down 33% since 2010—but we won’t be satisfied until every veteran has a home.”
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Under the agreement, Secretary McDonald will also launch an accelerated process to develop a new long-term master plan for the future use of the West Los Angeles campus. This master plan, targeted for completion by October 16, 2015, will prioritize the provision of bridge housing and permanent supportive housing. It will also describe an exit strategy for the third-party land use agreements that do not comply with applicable laws or fit within the master plan.
But Secretary McDonald doesn’t just talk the talk. Also last week, he and a group of volunteers participated in the annual PIT (point-in-time) count in the Skid Row section of Los Angeles’s downtown.
“One of the things you learn in the Army is you never leave a buddy behind,” Secretary McDonald said to more than 100 volunteers at the LA Mission. “Unfortunately, we’ve left some people behind, and they’re our homeless veterans.”
Veterans comprise a large percentage of the overall U.S. homeless population. This past fall, Federal Practitioner published a research article on the integration of Homeless Patient Aligned Care Team (H-PACT) clinics at 3 VAMCs across the U.S., one of which was the West Los Angeles VAMC. This research team tailored services to homeless veterans’ needs by co-locating H-PACT care where it was needed most. For the West Los Angeles VAMC, this meant the emergency department.
Related: Using H-PACT to Overcome Treatment Obstacles for Homeless Veterans
The researchers also determined processes to identify and refer appropriate homeless veterans to H-PACT and noted methods of integrating distinct services, such as primary care, mental health, and addiction services, into the H-PACT model. What was evident from the research was that each of the 3 models examined were created equal but distinct from one another, due to their unique patient populations.
“When we end veteran homelessness in Los Angeles,” Secretary McDonald said, “we effectively end veterans homelessness throughout the country.”
For more insight into the special needs facing the homeless veteran population in Los Angeles, listen to Sonya Gabrielian’s exclusive audiocast, “Mutual Reinforcement of Mental Illness and Homelessness.”