It is a 387-acre campus of green fields and low-lying buildings in a prosperous neighborhood, donated to the federal government more than 100 years ago for use as a Pacific Coast home for wounded veterans. But over the last 20 years, as Los Angeles has become inundated with homeless veterans, advocates for the homeless say the campus has become a symbol of a system gone wrong: as veterans sleep on the streets, many of its buildings lie abandoned and one-third of the land has been leased for commercial use…
In the class-action suit, filed on behalf of four mentally distressed homeless veterans, lawyers contend that the department has violated the terms of the agreement in which the property was deeded to the government in 1888. They also contend that the department is required — under a federal statute barring discrimination against the mentally disabled — to provide housing to help mentally ill veterans…
By any measure, the lawsuit — the first of its kind, lawyers said — is a significant escalation in a battle that has simmered here for years, as homeless advocates contended that the Department of Veterans Affairs was bowing to residents of the property’s prosperous Brentwood neighborhood and commercial interests by refusing to rehabilitate abandoned buildings and use them to help veterans.
For the first 100 years of its existence, the campus was used entirely to provide housing and services to veterans; that began changing in the 1960s and ’70s, as some of the buildings were abandoned and the Department of Veterans Affairs leased about one-third of the property for use by, among others, a car rental agency, a laundry for the Marriott hotel chain, a golf course, a dog walk and a baseball stadium for the nearby University of California, Los Angeles. It now has a limited number of geriatric beds for veterans.
RTFA. The lawsuit is overdue. The debt owed America’s veterans is one that politicians often invoke – without doing a damned thing to pay up.
Maybe you have a point Bobbo but think this one over.
The courts are going to see to it that local criminals have a decent place to stay but you can’t trust the Fed gov and the leaders of this community to allow a place given to vets to take care of vets so they don’t have to sleep on the side walk.
This says to me that in this community and among some of the Fed Gov flunkeys criminals are seen as having more worth than a vet.
If the veterans were actually in combat, they should have full benefits, food, shelter, and treatment.
Bobbo, why don’t you start your own blog, and leave us all the fuck alone?
#23–Mark, 3rd Try—I’ve not read such a mournful cry of incompetence in quite a while. So, what got blown off/damaged when the humvee hit you?===balls, brains, backbone?
I’m thinking right now of the howl Count Floyd would do on 3D Horror Monster Theater: Hooooowwwllll! Well kids, wasn’t that scary??? Hooo, Hooo, Hoooowwwllllll……Kids, we got to howl because we don’t have the brains to offer an argument against that with which we disagree. (sic!)
Man enough to post, not enough to think.
Sad Hooman.
Mark III, I agree completely! I am sick of “Boobo-who thinks he knows all”!!! JCD why don’t you create a speacial place for Boobo so he can pontificate all his “knowledge” I’m really sick of him.
In this country when someone in power says support the troops he usually means support the policy.
They don’t mind seizing people’s private land to give to developers who pay the politicians. How about they just seize the government land and give it to the homeless?
#25 SWAT45
If we kicked everone who annoyed someone off the blog, there’d be no one left.
Are you against free expression? Why do you hate America?
Even TeaDud has a voice here, even if some days I wish he’d shut it.
#7, I agree with you 100%. They should get it. How they get it is up to them, though.
#7, Bobbo,
Well said.
Too bad these
lonerslosers can’t differentiate between what benefits society and what benefits the Kock brothers. They expect the government to be there when THEY need something, and not to exist when they don’t need them.#21, do ill
The prison overcrowding was caused by the California voters wanting a “three strikes and you’re out” criminal policy and then electing enough Republicans so they can’t fund the increased prison population.
The Courts are NOT the government and only uphold the Constitution. The overcrowding is unconstitutional. Sorry you hate America. So is America.
Kick out Bobbo! Are you kidding?
Once you get rid of everyone you don’t like, all you’ll have is a club where you can sit around and praise each others ignorance.
Bonehead: I didn’t suggest kicking out anyone except Boobo! He tries to monopolize the conversation and it gets monotonous. His presumption that HE alone has the right answer to every issue makes a person want to puke. Don’t bother trying to put words in my mouth— maybe you and Boobo ought to start your own blog where your opinions are the only ones heard
#33. If you ignore him, eventually he will get tired of talking to himself and go away.
Don’t you know he sports a little woody every time he gets you riled up?
Children are like that.
#12–chuck==you say: “I’ll pay for my mother’s health care – and I’ll happily pay for veteran’s health care, but I don’t want to pay for yours.” //// You strike me as a fair and reasonable/caring person. Just tell me what mothers without caring/rich kiddies should do?
The fact that you care for your mother tells me all it would take is some education and honest talk to move you to my side of the argument. Sadly, that can’t be done on a blog. But as to your shortsighted worship of your own wallet: see the other 14-23 industrialized societies that get better health care outcomes at half the cost. Shouldn’t those PROVEN cost effective systems be borrowed from for the same benefits?
I think so, as does any other person who cares about the issue and can use evidence, common sense, and actual experience==ie, “think.” Go ahead–challenge yourself: is there a better way to do this? There usually is.
#21–deowll==you say: “The courts are going to see to it that local criminals have a decent place to stay….” /// Have you ever been to a prison? I note your good faith attempt to see my point but man you went off the road on that one. Maybe thats how getting better starts? Heh, heh.
Should the VA system be charged with housing Vets who for whatever reasons ((too often failure to treat the underlying mental conditions also too often only delayed stress syndrome)) cannot house themselves? I think so but only because I think that should be the case for all people of similar needs. We are rich enough to do this…….so why not?
Why not? Why not invest in your OWN humanity? Yes–each of you nay sayers individually. You get back what you give out in a Karmic sense. The golden rule. Less crime. Does nothing move you?
Why the dogma?
And to the rest of you nay sayers. Trying to turn a free and active blog into a shut down circle jerk of right wing bobble headed closed hearted and closed minded jack booted anti-liberty anti-American know nothings will only work when open liberal minded fact driven opinion such as mine is censored from this blog.
From time to time, I actually marvel at the fact this hasn’t happened so far. I do take some issues to far, usually just to find the borderline, but I do believe “most” of what I post. And more than anyone else I have seen post here, I often say: I don’t know. I leave it to the majority will.
When you think about issues and allow facts to take you where they will, that will happen.
give it a try.
……and…..#34–Marshmallow Poopy Head==let’s parse:
#33. If you ignore him, eventually he will get tired of talking to himself and go away. /// But I’m talking to YOU.
Don’t you know he sports a little woody every time he gets you riled up?
Children are like that.
What magic combo of mistyped letters posted that early start? Live and learn, shortcuts and easter eggs everywhere. In life, and on blogs.
……and…..#34–Marshmallow Poopy Head==let’s parse:
#33. If you ignore him, eventually he will get tired of talking to himself and go away. /// But I’m talking to YOU. Silly to deny what you yourself are doing, can observe others do, and then just make nonsense up. This is NOT a Republican blog. You have to make sense here.
Don’t you know he sports a little woody every time he gets you riled up? //// Project much? Ha, ha. Well, I suppose connecting a sexual response with the invitation to think isn’t the worse thing in the world. I don’t know–you’ll have to tell us.
Children are like that. /// Children get woody’s on the notion of upsetting other people? I don’t think so. Freud said everything has a sexual basis but even he allowed for the operation of Ego and Super-Ego. Egads Man!!! The first thing we learn as sentient creatures is to separate ourselves from non-self. You know–as we age, something other than an emotional response.
Good boy.
#33,
Bonehead: I didn’t suggest kicking out anyone except Boobo! He tries to monopolize the conversation and it gets monotonous. His presumption that HE alone has the right answer to every issue makes a person want to puke.
Yup. Another wing nut that only wants the rules applied to others.
If you don’t like his posts, IGNORE THEM !!! Like most right wing nuts though, taking personal responsibility is only for others.