Veterans Betrayed By the Department of Veterans Affairs

by Peggy Burgess

Veterans have once again been betrayed by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs (DVA), the very Agency that is supposed to protect them but, in fact, has not since Korea. 

The latest betrayal involves the Sepulveda VA in North Hills, CA, which serves veterans throughout the San Fernando, Simi and Antelope Valleys and Ventura County, including Lancaster-Palmdale and north to Santa Maria.  Since 1996, the VA has systematically downsized and gutted this once vibrant full service hospital and medical center.  The hospital was demolished and there are no urgent care or emergency services available. 

What basically remains is an outpatient clinic, pharmacy, a nursing home for aging vets, an x-ray lab, a methadone dispensary and a few medical buildings which are now rented to TV and film production companies, including Gray’s Anatomy.  None of the Film and TV revenue is used for the benefit of the Veterans.

Not content with that, a few years ago, the DVA’s Asset Management Division devised a unique new tool called the Enhanced Use Lease (EUL).  The sole purpose of the EUL program is to allow the VA to lease veterans Land to private sector developers and clear the way for the VA to divest itself of unwanted properties.

In 2007 the Dept. of Veterans Affairs entered into two 75-year Enhanced Use Leases at the Sepulveda VA with A Community of Friends (ACOF) and New Directions (ND).  ACOF is a private sector low income developer also specializing in large scale sober living complexes.  New Directions owns and operates a number of sober living homes in single family neighborhoods throughout the Los Angeles area.  New Directions also operates an in-patient drug and alcohol abuse program at the Westwood VA. Those patients are not allowed to leave the campus unescorted.  The proposed Sepulveda project is entirely different. 

The Leases allow conversion of two urgently needed medical buildings, 4 and 5, into a 147 unit apartment complex, plus two managers units, on 7.05 acres of largely undeveloped land near the center of the campus.  The development is being promoted as permanent housing for homeless veterans.  However, under federal law, it cannot be exclusively for veterans. The estimated 2004 cost of the conversion on VA property was $40 million and would be at least double that now.  Homeless veterans can be housed anywhere and we have contractors estimates that the same complex could be built from scratch anywhere else at $100,000 per door.  Buildings 4 and 5 were the psychiatric and spinal cord units.

The Leases give ACOF and New Directions, title to the buildings and all improvements plus 90% of the film and TV revenue, estimated by the VA at over $4 million in 2009.  Further, the DVA Secretary can sell or simply transfer the deed to the lessees at any time during the 75 years.  

The Sepulveda VA is zoned PF-1 public facility, in this case a hospital.  Apartments are not allowed in the PF zone so the Lessees must get a zoning Variance from the City Of L.A. in order to proceed.  Approval of the Variance will set a dangerous precedent and open up not only those 7 acres but the entire 160 acres of the Sepulveda VA to further development by the private sector. None of it will be for the Veterans who will lose their land and their medical center forever.  A Zoning Administrator hearing was held on February 20.  Over 200 veterans and community members spoke in opposition to the project.  The decision is still pending but whether it is approved or denied, the decision will be appealed to the North Valley Area Planning Commission by one side or the other.

The project is also opposed by the North Hills West Neighborhood Council (NHWNC), whose boundaries include the Sepulveda VA and the veterans it serves are stakeholders.   The NHWNC has studied the proposed project in depth for over four years.  The NHWNC voted to deny it twice, once in 2006 and again in November 2008.  They concluded the veterans and the community would be better served if buildings 4 and 5, which are clean and in good condition, were refurbished and staffed as medical buildings.  As such, they would house 300-350 Veterans undergoing treatment at any given time, while the apartments, even if they were for Veterans only, would house only 147 permanently.

The issue is simple.  These are medical buildings, the veterans and the public conscience demand they remain so.  This country is at war! To deprive thousands of veterans of urgently needed medical buildings in favor of 147 apartments to house a few would be criminal!

Veterans are entitled to receive full service hospital and medical care in their immediate area. That’s why VA hospitals were set up in San Diego, Long Beach, Westwood and Sepulveda.  Aging and disabled veterans and the thousands who will soon be returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, must not be forced to travel two to four hours, one way, to Westwood for medical care.

No one wants this project to go forward.  In addition to the NHWNC, the coalition of neighborhood council opponents include Granada Hills South, .Foothills Trails District NC and Sunland Tujunga  (combined the four councils represent over 230,000 stakeholders).  Also opposed are two schools, The San Fernando Valley Historical Society, LAPD (Devonshire Division), the 5,000 members of The American Legion District 20, the local chapter of Viet Nam Veterans of America, VT Network, We The Veterans and dozens of other Veterans’ Organizations. The list is growing daily.

So, the line is drawn in the Sand!  Veterans and the community are also calling on President Obama and General Eric Shinseki, Secretary of the DVA, to rescind the Leases and restore the entire 160 acre property as a full service hospital-medial center. To allow use by the private sector for any other purpose is to degrade and disenfranchise the survivors who have served this country honorably, those currently serving and defile the memories of those have died in that service.  This land belongs to the veterans, bought and paid for with their blood and their lives.  No one has the right to lease, sell or give it away without their approval and the veterans do not approve of this misuse of their land.

Peggy Burgess is a stakeholder member of the NHWNC Land Use Committee and Chair of the ad hoc Community Planning Committee.  Email: [email protected]
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