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About a year ago, President Trump issued an executive order to tackle veterans' homelessness nationwide. Among other things, it promised to house 6,000 veterans on the sprawling VA campus in West Los Angeles. It's not a new idea. In fact, projects and court cases have dragged on for decades around building housing for vets there. And many LA veterans welcome President Trump's proposal to get something done, but now they are raising questions about what, if anything, is happening, as NPR's Quil Lawrence reports.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: The West LA campus has come a long way in the past decade, and it is housing a lot of veterans like Vincent Tourville.
VINCENT TOURVILLE: In '08, I did basic training, and I deployed in 2009 to Iraq.
LAWRENCE: Tourville doesn't like to talk about the details, but he's rated 100% disabled by the VA.
TOURVILLE: PTSD and nerve damage and knee damage and multiple surgeries and whatnot, but there was one incident and one convoy, but it wasn't - I'm happy to be here. That's all I want to say.
LAWRENCE: And Tourville had a rough time when he came home. He was angry and out of control. He wound up driving from Maine to LA and not in a good way.
TOURVILLE: I went from truck stop to truck stop to truck stop, just drinking and just begging for money and didn't have any and just trying to get by and just - (laughter) whatever it takes to get from LA - or from Portland, Maine, to LA. And I finally made it back, and I went to Venice Beach. And I sat out there, and I felt like I'd accomplished something. But I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do. And I ended up at the VA.
LAWRENCE: Tourville believes the VA saved his life.
TOURVILLE: So I went from sleeping on the beach and sleeping on my car to - they had a safe parking program.
LAWRENCE: He could park his car on the VA campus and sleep in it, get one hot meal, and be out by morning.
TOURVILLE: I went from living in my car. I went to building 257.
LAWRENCE: And he graduated from program to program.
TOURVILLE: It wasn't drug tested. It wasn't anything like that.
LAWRENCE: From a place he could just stay, no questions asked, into a nicer building but with conditions.
TOURVILLE: Where they're drug testing you, they have more direction in where you're going, what - you want to get a job? What are you trying to do with your life?
LAWRENCE: Tourville got healthcare and therapy, and they sorted out his VA benefits. Along the way, he had a son. You can hear him in the background while we talk.
TOURVILLE: Can you say hi?
VINCE JR: Oh (ph).
LAWRENCE: Two-year-old Vince Jr. is living here with him.
TOURVILLE: And I'm still grateful, and it's such a conflicting feeling because, I mean, they saved my life.
LAWRENCE: Conflicted because the West LA campus, for all its progress, has major issues - drugs, prostitution. Vince has found roaches in his son's crib.
TOURVILLE: Open drug use and roaches and fire alarms all throughout the night and just standard of living that is just so - and so you can't come in demanding something when you're asking for help. But if you're part of this big organization that has all these resources and all these funds being thrown out of it, there's certain standards that I feel that should be met that just aren't being met.
ROB REYNOLDS: It's problematic because it's creating an environment that people don't want to be in.
LAWRENCE: Rob Reynolds has been an advocate for homeless vets here for seven years. For most of that time, he's been giving me an annual tour of the campus in his truck.
REYNOLDS: Some of the new apartments that have been opening up are really beautiful.
LAWRENCE: Construction is everywhere, and there are now more than 1,200 open units. But Reynolds says for this community to work, there needs to be amenities and services and more housing. President Trump's executive order last year got his hopes up.
REYNOLDS: So I really want to see, you know, with President Trump's executive order, ways to help people get back on their feet and help them, you know, get work or go to school and start doing things to get them out of their apartment.
LAWRENCE: Reynolds has been disappointed by Democrats and Republicans over the years. He wants this to work, and he doesn't care who gets the credit. But there's been little sign of action since the executive order a year ago and an information blackout. The Trump administration made VA officials and advocates sign nondisclosure agreements. Reynolds says that's how plans have failed here in the past.
REYNOLDS: This is why I have such a huge problem with these nondisclosure agreements because the conversation you and I are having right now, we should be having with the Trump administration or the VA officials in charge of implementing that executive order. And, you know, I just worry that these conversations aren't being had.
LAWRENCE: Even in Congress, members of both parties have been shut out. At a House hearing last week, lawmakers slammed VA officials for the NDAs. The plan to house 6,000 veterans on the campus was given to Congress just the night before the hearing. Danielle Runyan, senior counselor to the VA secretary, blamed lawsuits over the land use.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DANIELLE RUNYAN: We have been embattled in litigation - in litigation that we inherited when this administration took over. So going forward, we are happy to provide monthly updates to the committee.
LAWRENCE: She did not explain why the administration's budget request doesn't fund a single new bed on the campus this year. NPR reached out to the VA for clarification, but they didn't answer by airtime. At the hearing, California Democrat Mark Takano raised the alarm that Trump's plan is not viable.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARK TAKANO: This concentration of veterans without adequate supportive services has jeopardized tenant safety, sobriety and mental health. If we do not act, I fear that we will doom this property to become a vast West Side skid row.
LAWRENCE: Vince Tourville, the Iraq vet, says his life is on track now, all thanks to the VA. And he really had hoped that this campus could be a home when he heard the Trump administration's plan last year.
TOURVILLE: I was extremely excited. I think it - the word spread around campus like wildfire. But then you're waiting to see the execution of it, and it feels like we might be waiting for a while, if ever, for forever. I don't know 'cause what's being said and what's being done are two different things.
LAWRENCE: But again, thanks to VA services here, Tourville is using his education benefits and his disability checks and hoping to move away as soon as he can. Quil Lawrence, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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