A new executive order was signed by President Donald Trump over the weekend that aims to provide housing for thousands of homeless veterans in Los Angeles, California.
According to the Washington Examiner, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been directed to convert the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical campus into housing for up to 6,000 homeless veterans by 2028.
Approximately 3,000 veterans living in Los Angeles are homeless, equating to around 10% of all homeless veterans across the U.S., and the largest of any American city.
According to the executive order, funding previously used to house illegal immigrants will be redirected to provide housing and medical services, a plan which the VA must present to the White House by September to implement the order.
In a statement, VA Secretary Doug Collins praised the move and said there has been mismanagement in the agency for decades.
“After decades of mismanagement, VA has been leasing parts of its 388-acre West Los Angeles VA Medical Center campus to a wealthy and exclusive private school and the University of California, Los Angeles, baseball team,” Collins said.
“Today’s executive order will enable us to ensure VA’s West Los Angeles Campus is being used as intended: to benefit Veterans,” Collins said. “Our goal is to turn the campus into a beacon of hope and a destination for homeless Veterans from across the nation who can travel there to find housing and support and start their journey back to self-sufficiency.”
The Department of Housing and Urban Development have further been directed to coordinate with the VA regarding the use of vouchers “to support homeless veterans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and around the Nation with respect to this effort.”
The HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program offers housing vouchers to veterans in need. Yet, according to a report from the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System last year, only 62% of the 8,453 available HUD-VASH vouchers in the Los Angeles area were actively utilized.
The Veterans Collective, a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to establishing the country’s largest supportive housing community for homeless veterans, expressed strong approval of Trump’s directive.
“We support any initiative that will provide safe and supportive housing for veterans who bravely served our country,” HUD-VASH said in a statement to ABC News. “We agree with the White House: Our heroes deserve better.”
