Four top military retirees, including leader of Bin Laden raid, join vets’ fight over housing

Four retirees from the top echelon of the U.S. military, including the admiral who led the raid on Osama bin Laden, have filed a brief that castigates the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ neglect of homeless veterans in Los Angeles as “a direct threat to national security.”

Retired admirals Michael G. Mullen, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and William H. McRaven, who led the raid in Pakistan, signed on to the brief filed with the U.S. 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a district court order requiring the VA to build thousands of housing units on its West Los Angeles campus.

They were joined by two other high-level Army retirees, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, who as vice chief of staff oversaw the Army’s 1.1 million active and reserve soldiers, and Col. David W. Sutherland, who was special assistant to the chair of the joint chiefs responsible for warrior and family support.

Several veterans groups separately filed a brief supporting the order: The Vietnam Veterans of America California State Council and four VVA chapters, the Amvets Department of California and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

The VA is appealing U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter’s order requiring it to provide 750 units of temporary supportive housing on the campus within 18 months and come up with a plan to add up to 1,800 units of permanent housing within six years.

Carter also voided leases of large chunks of the campus to UCLA and the private Brentwood School. Under pressure from the judge, the K-12 academy agreed to a new lease expanding veterans’ access to its 22-acre athletic facility.

That lease and a fast-track effort to get about 100 of those units open this spring, some of them on UCLA’s baseball stadium parking lot, were both put on hold when the 9th Circuit stayed Carter’s order. In its appeal, the VA said being forced to pay for that housing, and losing control over its leasing authority, would cause it “irreparable harm.”

A hearing is scheduled for April 8.

Attorneys for the veterans filed a 65-page brief dissecting fine points of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and the nature of a fiduciary duty that Carter ruled the government bears under the 1888 gift of the 388-acre campus for the “establishment, construction and permanent maintenance” of a home for disabled soldiers.

The retired brass and veterans organizations added emotionally charged addenda to that legalistic document.

The four former officers raised the prospect of undermining the military as it “faces one of its most challenging recruiting crises since the [all volunteer forces] began in 1973.

“The U.S. is fielding its smallest military force since the end of World War Two at a time when the complexity and scope of three global threat environments — in the South China Sea, in Eastern Europe, in the Middle East — is a highwater mark,” they wrote.

They attribute the decline in enlistments to a loss of faith in the government’s commitment to care for disabled veterans at a time when military service is associated with “war trauma leading to physical and psychological harms, such as PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and elevated suicide risk.”

“When the VA does not honor its obligation to provide supportive housing on the WLA VA campus, recruits see illness and homelessness awaiting them on the other side of combat,” they wrote.

“The VA’s failure to reintegrate disabled and homeless veterans undermines the military’s best source for recruiting — the veterans themselves. ... Veterans are often the military’s most effective recruiters — especially of their family members. …Yet only 63% of veterans would recommend enlisting in the military, a 12-point drop from 2019.”

The veterans organizations argued that veteran homelessness, which had been on a downward trend, has been exacerbated by the recent Palisades and Eaton fires.

“The fires demonstrate that loss can come quickly and unexpectedly to any veteran, and that more housing is needed — right now,” they wrote.

Citing census data, they estimated that 250 veterans lost homes in the Eaton fire and 170 in the Palisades fire.

Though conceding that not all of the displaced veterans will become homeless, they wrote that “the widespread devastation all but ensures that some — and possibly many — will,” as “the fires have seriously exacerbated the Los Angeles area’s affordable housing crisis.”

The VA did not respond to an email requesting comment.

“The dire conditions that prompted the district court to grant injunctive relief have only worsened,” they wrote. “The Court should affirm the judgment.”