As some disabled veterans wait for housing, others fall back into homelessness (2024)

LOS ANGELES — At just 23 years old, Josh Erickson’s life changed forever.

He was a soldier in the Army, stationed in Afghanistan, during the Operation Enduring Freedom war, when he stepped on an IED and lost his leg.

“I’ve had prosthetics since 2012,” Erickson said.

Erickson came home to Southern California a hero, but his toughest battles were still ahead.

Two years after his service, Erickson lost his mother and eventually the roof over his head.

“I had nowhere to go,” he said. “I was just wandering the streets and couch surfing.”

Years of homelessness, grief and drug addiction, he says, ultimately led him to the Veteran Affairs campus in Westwood.

“I’m glad I came because it’s just been a hell of an experience since then," he said.

The now-34-year-old has been living in the tiny home pallet shelters on the VA campus for more than a year, as part of their Care, Treatment and Rehabilitative Services program.

It’s where he got clean, gets his health care and — most importantly, he says — built a community.

Erickson has finally secured housing, but it’s a bittersweet victory. The apartment is in East Hollywood, away from the VA Hospital he depends on and the friends he’s made here, who he says help him stay sober.

And without a working car right now, it would Erickson an hour and 45 minutes to commute to the VA campus via public transit.

Ideally, Erickson says, he would move into the new apartments going up on the VA campus instead, but because he receives both social security income and disability benefits, he doesn’t qualify.

And he’s not the only one.

Due to income barriers tied to the funding that helped create this housing, the majority of veterans who could benefit most from living here, aren’t allowed to.

A lawsuit, filed by homeless veterans and housing advocates in 2022, wants to change that. It also wants to force the federal government to provide more supportive housing on the 388-acre campus, which they say was the intended use of the land when it was given to veterans in 1888.

Robert Reynolds, a veteran who is involved in the lawsuit, says officials have been misusing the VA land for decades. At least 10 acres are leased to UCLA for a baseball field. Another chunk is leased to an energy company that drills for oil.

The case is set to go to trial in August.

As for the income barrier limit, it’s not a new challenge, but there is a new effort to fix it.

Rep. Brad Sherman, who recently attended a groundbreaking ceremony for new housing on the VA campus, has introduced a bill that would eliminate this barrier. It’s called the Housing Unhoused Disabled Veterans Act.

While Sherman says the bill has bipartisan support, it faces major delays in getting passed, especially on the Senate floor.

“It’s tough, the whole country is tied up in knots,” Sherman said.

But as that bill sits idle on Capitol Hill, homeless veterans in Los Angeles are growing frustrated.

Jerry is a U.S Navy veteran who dropped out of the tiny home program on the VA campus after finding out he doesn’t qualify for housing.

He’s now back on the streets, living between dozens of RV’s that are camped out on Federal Avenue.

“It’s better than a tiny box,” Jerry said.

Last year, officials counted 4,246 homeless veterans in LA County. Of those, 53% are disabled, and likely receiving disability benefits.

Many of them are Erickson’s friends — but like Erickson, they have to wait for other apartments to become available, which are further away and take longer to access.

“Use a little bit of common sense. I think we’re lacking in that a little bit these days,” Erickson said.

That’s his message to lawmakers, as he waits for a housing option that makes more sense — because after everything he’s gone through, Erickson says, he doesn’t want to settle for anything less.