The Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week it has terminated leases with three private tenants on the West Los Angeles VA campus, a move that could clear the way for thousands of units of housing for homeless veterans on one of the most valuable pieces of federal land in the country.
Effective Monday, the VA canceled agreements with the Brentwood School, an elite K-12 private institution that has used 22 acres of the campus for its athletic programs; Safety Park Corp., which operates a for-profit parking lot north of the Brentwood post office; and Bridgeland Resources LLC, an oil drilling company.
VA Secretary Doug Collins framed the action in sharp terms.
"These groups have been fleecing taxpayers and veterans for far too long, and under President Trump, the VA is taking decisive action to ensure the West LA VAMC campus is used only as intended: to benefit veterans," Collins said in a statement.
The terminations follow a financial analysis released by the VA last November that found the leaseholders had collectively been paying roughly $40 million a year below market-rate rent, prompting critics to label the arrangements sweetheart deals.
UCLA's Jackie Robinson baseball stadium, which has also operated on VA land since 1981, was not included in the termination order.
The West LA VA campus spans 388 acres that were deeded to the federal government in 1888 to serve as a "Soldiers' Home" for disabled veterans. The original deed carried a covenant — known as the Bandini-Jones covenant — mandating that the land be used solely for the benefit of veterans.
Despite that restriction, the VA began leasing portions of the campus to outside entities starting in the 1980s. Over the years, tenants included not only the school, parking lot and oil company but also a hotel laundry service, rental car storage operation, movie set lots, a public dog park and a television production studio.
The Brentwood School signed a 20-year lease in 2001 and is estimated to have invested $17 million in athletic facilities on the property, including a 10-lane heated swimming pool, tennis courts and fields for baseball, soccer and football. The school said it hopes to preserve its presence on the campus.
The lease terminations are the culmination of years of legal challenges brought by veterans who argued the campus was being misused while thousands of former service members in the Los Angeles area remained homeless.
A 2011 class-action lawsuit led to a 2015 settlement in which the VA agreed to develop a master plan for housing on the campus. Congress followed with the West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016, which authorized third-party leases on the property only if they "principally benefit" veterans and their families. VA inspector general reviews in 2018 and 2021 found that multiple agreements failed to meet that standard.
In 2022, a group of 14 disabled veterans filed a new lawsuit, and in September 2024, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued a landmark ruling voiding four leases on the campus and ordering the VA to rapidly expand veterans' housing. Carter held that the 1888 covenant remains binding and that the VA has a "duty to use the West L.A. VA grounds" for veterans' housing and health care.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld much of Carter's decision in December 2025, agreeing the private leases had "strayed from its mission" by serving commercial interests. The appeals court allowed the UCLA stadium lease to remain under a separate legal rationale.
The cleared land is central to an ambitious plan to house veterans on the campus. In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the VA to establish a "National Center for Warrior Independence" on the property, with a goal of providing housing and supportive services for up to 6,000 homeless veterans by 2028.
The VA has appointed a dedicated campus administrator to oversee redevelopment of the site, separate from the adjacent VA medical center's management.