By Irene Flores Santa Monica
Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to R. James Nicholson, Secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Secretary Nicholson: I work with my church in Santa Monica to help homeless people, so I was interested in the comments you made about homeless veterans on Anderson Cooper’s (CNN, “Anderson Cooper 360”) show Friday, Nov. 10. It is wonderful that the VA plans to “intervene right away” to prevent veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan from becoming homeless.
You also referred to a “delayed effect with a lot of veterans after Vietnam.”We can certainly see that on the streets of Los Angeles County. It has been more than 30 years since the Vietnam War ended, and an estimated 17,000 to 27,000 veterans are living (and dying) on our streets. Many of them have been homeless for decades.
Before I got involved helping the homeless, I assumed that homeless veterans were pretty well cared for by the VA — the way you described it in a speech made in Branson, Missouri, last year: “I pledge to you this morning as the leader of the 230,000 employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs, that Vietnam veterans will always receive the respect and care from their government that you deserve... We will press forward in our commitment to reach out to, and restore the dignity of, our nation’s homeless veterans...”
I am sure this is happening for some veterans, but not for enough of the veterans in Los Angeles County. And what’s worse, many buildings that could house hundreds of our homeless veterans continue to sit unused on the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration campus.
Over a year ago,four homeless service providers and the City of Santa Monica submitted a proposal to the VA to use three of those buildings for therapeutic supportive housing for vets.
As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing has happened. The CARES Process seems to have evaporated, and now officials are talking about a “Master Plan” that was supposed to be completed years ago and will no doubt take many more years to do. Some people believe that requiring a master plan is nothing more than a stalling tactic to keep more veteran housing off that land, thereby helping commercial interests who want to move into the buildings themselves or build hotels or high-priced condos.
It is a good idea to create a master plan, but can any responsible person even imagine a plan for the West L.A. campus that does not include housing for homeless vets, given how many there are in L.A. County? So why not go ahead with that part of the plan right away, before more of our soldiers who survived Vietnam do not survive on our streets?
Mr. Nicholson, thousands of people — your people — are suffering here. A solution is at hand. Please do the right thing soon.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 21, 2006. Read the original PDF.