Veterans Home

Veterans Home in the United States

Veterans Homeless

by Barbara Kate Repa (2012)

Many veterans become chronically homeless.

A long-ago bequest was intended to prevent some of this hardship. In 1888, U.S. Senator John P. Jones and Arcadia B. de Baker donated more than 300 acres of land in Los Angeles to the federal government, earmarking it for permanent housing for disabled war veterans. For nearly 80 years, the Pacific Branch Soldier’s Home housed tens of thousands of vets.

Then the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stopped accepting new residents. In 1989, it began leasing parts of the property to private companies, currently including Marriott and Enterprise Rent-A-Car.

Now, eleven homeless veterans suffering from severe mental disabilities – joined by Carolina Winston Barrie, a descendant of the family that donated the land, and the Vietnam Veterans of America – have brought a class action alleging misappropriation of the land trust. They also complain that the VA is discriminating against the disabled vets by denying them housing vouchers and other supportive services required by the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

Helping homeless vets

The ACLU Foundation of Southern California and the Inner City Law Center, along with professors Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard and Gary Blasi of UCLA, are spearheading the litigation. Hundreds of pro bono hours have already been donated by Ronald L. Olson and John Rappaport of Munger, Tolles & Olson as well as John C. Ulin of Arnold & Porter in an effort to end VA policies they claim discriminate against veterans with severe disabilities. (See Valentini v. Shinseki, No. C11-04846 (C.D. Cal.).)

“The psychiatric care provided to disabled vets requires something more than handing out vouchers on Skid Row and expecting them to find their way,” says Olson, for whom the case is personal. “One of the most important people in my life was an uncle who went off to the war in early 1942 and didn’t return until the war was over. In his company of approximately 300, all but 11 were killed or disabled. It took him a good number of years to recover from the trauma of that war. He eventually became my mentor.”

Department of Veterans Affairs

Note: See the main entry about the Department of Veterans Affairs here.

The Compensation and Pension Service is responsible for claims for
disability compensation and pension, specially adapted housing, accrued
bene?ts, adjusted compensation in death cases, and reimbursement for headstone
or marker; allowances for automobiles and special adaptive equipment; special
clothing allowances; emergency of?cers’ retirement pay; survivors’ claims for
death compensation, dependency and indemnity compensation, death pension,
and burial and plot allowance claims; forfeiture determinations; and a bene?ts
protection program for minors and incompetent adult bene?ciaries.

The Education Service administers the Montgomery GI Bill program and other programs which provide education bene?ts to quali?ed active-duty
members, veterans, certain dependents of veterans, and members of the Selected
and Ready Reserve. The Service also checks school records to ensure that they
comply with the pertinent law, approves courses for the payment of educational
bene?ts, and administers a work-study program.

The Insurance Service’s operations for the bene?t of servicemembers, veterans,
and their bene?ciaries are available through the regional of?ce and insurance
center (phone, 800–669–8477) in Philadelphia, PA, which provides the full
range of activities necessary for a national life insurance program. Activities include
the complete maintenance of individual accounts, underwriting functions, life
and death insurance claims awards, and any other insurance-related transactions.

The Service also administers the Veterans Mortgage Life Insurance Program for
those disabled veterans who receive a VA grant for specially adapted housing and
supervises the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance Program and the Veterans’
Group Life Insurance Program.

The Loan Guaranty Service is responsible for operations that include
appraising properties to establish their values; approving grants for
specially adapted housing; supervising the construction of new residential
properties; establishing the eligibility of veterans for the program; evaluating
the ability of a veteran to repay a loan and the credit risk; making direct
loans to Native American veterans to acquire a home on trust land; servicing
and liquidating defaulted loans; and disposing of real estate acquired as the
consequence of defaulted loans.

The Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service provides outreach,
motivation, evaluation, counseling, training, employment, and other
rehabilitation services to serviceconnected disabled veterans. Vocational
and educational counseling, as well as the evaluation of abilities, aptitudes, and
interests are provided to veterans and servicepersons. Counseling, assessment,
education programs, and, in some cases, rehabilitation services are available
to spouses and children of totally and permanently disabled veterans as well
as surviving orphans, widows, and widowers of certain deceased veterans.

Vocational training and rehabilitation services are available to children with
spina bi?da having one or both parents who served in the Republic of Vietnam
during the Vietnam era, or served in certain military units in or near the
demilitarized zone in Korea, between September 1, 1967 and August 31, 1971.

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