President Donald Trump took executive action on May 9 that was directed toward fulfilling a campaign promise to improve the lives of America’s veterans.
“The campus once featured a chapel, billiard hall, 1,000-seat theater, and housed about 6,000 veterans, but the Federal Government has since allowed this crown jewel of veteran care to deteriorate over the last few decades,” the president writes in the order.
He went on to state that the VA department leased parts of the property, sometimes at below-market prices, to private companies, a private school, and the UCLA baseball team.
“As of 2024, there were approximately 3,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles, more than in any other city in the country and accounting for about 10 percent of all of America’s homeless veterans,” he wrote. ”Many of these heroes live in squalor in Los Angeles’s infamous ’skid row.'”
The order directs the VA secretary to present an action plan within 120 days that will restore housing capacity at the center to 6,000 homeless veterans by Jan. 1, 2028, as well as fulfill other directives.
Those directives include ensuring that the center is accessible to homeless veterans outside of the Los Angeles metro area, ensuring that funds that might have been spent on housing or other services for illegal immigrants are redirected towards establishing, constructing, and maintaining the center by coordinating with the secretaries of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development.
The Housing and Urban Development Secretary is also instructed to distribute vouchers to support this effort.
At the heart of it, the order directs the VA department to “work to restore self-sufficiency and the warrior ethos among homeless veterans through any guidance, requirements, or services needed to ensure that homeless veterans can access housing, receive substance abuse or addiction treatment, and return to productive work and community engagement.”
This order builds upon legislation from Trump’s first term that expanded accountability in the VA department and expanded benefits for veterans, and orders “appropriate action against individuals who have committed misconduct, making full use of and in accordance with the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017.”
The order also directs the VA secretary to develop plans that further benefit the department, including decreasing wait times and expanding office hours and appointment opportunities.
