Empty VA building to house homeless vets

Vacant for nearly two decades, Building 209 on the Veterans Administration’s sprawling West L.A. property was a one-time mental health ward without a modern mission.

But thanks to $20 million pledged by Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, the three-story, 46,000 square foot facility will get a top-to-bottom renovation and provide chronically-homeless veterans with a new home.

“Ending Veteran homelessness is one of my top priorities, and this building renovation will provide housing and take us one stop closer to achieving our goal,” Shinseki said, referring to a plan he announced last fall to end veterans’ homelessness by 2015. “No veteran should have to face the challenge of being homeless.”

Building 209 will be converted into apartments for 70 to 90 veterans who have long-standing problems with homelessness. The facility will provide not only housing, but also therapeutic services that include medical and mental health care treatment. In Los Angeles County, there are an estimated 6,540 homeless veterans.

The stucco building, built in 1945, was first used as an in-patient psychiatric facility and was later converted for out-patient care. It’s been empty since the early 1990s.

The promise of funding came during a June 16 meeting on Capitol Hill between Shinseki, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Henry Waxman and L.A. County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. At the hour-long meeting, held in Feinstein’s office, Shinseki also promised to help the officials find additional funding to convert two adjacent buildings to provide similar housing.

“I’m very encouraged by Secretary Shinseki’s pledge of $20 million to make this renovation project a reality,” Feinstein said in a joint statement with Waxman and Yaroslavsky.

“We so appreciate Secretary Shinseki’s commitment to house our homeless veterans who have already sacrificed so much for our nation,” Yaroslavsky said.

“This action will provide critical long-term therapeutic housing that is long overdue,” Waxman said.

The deal caps an arduous 6-year effort that began in 2004 after Santa Monica Mayor Bobby Shriver, then running for city council, proposed housing the homeless in empty buildings at the VA’s facility.

At the time, the Bush Administration was considering selling portions of the Veterans Administration land, including the property around Building 209, to private developers. The privatization effort failed, and Shriver and other elected officials pushed successfully to have the three buildings set aside for homeless services. In 2007, then-Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson agreed to the plan.

Still, the buildings sat vacant, partly because of a failed effort by VA officials to secure funding from the non-profit sector. Last winter, Feinstein, Waxman and Yaroslavksy pushed the VA to come up with an alternative plan to fund the renovation.

Shinseki’s $20 million pledge will cover seismic retrofitting and a top to bottom overhaul.

“It’ll basically be gutting the whole darned building and redoing it,” said Ronald Norby, director of the VA Desert Pacific Healthcare Network, which covers Southern California and Southern Nevada.

The facility will be the first at the West L.A. facility to provide long-term housing plus therapeutic services for the most difficult to reach veterans, some of whom have been on the street for years.

Additional federal money will be needed to operate the facility, which could be run either by VA staffers or by a non-profit contract provider, according to VA officials.

In a statement Monday, Shriver said the Veterans Administration’s commitment was “fantastic news.” But he added: “We won’t say congratulations until the first homeless veteran is housed and receiving treatment.”