As court battles continue over housing on the VA's West L.A. Campus, the organization officially opened a new building on Thursday for permanent veterans' housing on the site.
The building, called Macarthur Field A, has room for 74 vets along with space for supportive services personnel, and the occupancy rate is already at 90%.
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During Thursday's ribbon cutting for the structure, Veterans Affairs Chief of Staff Margaret Kabat shared some encouraging numbers. "Veteran homelessness is down 23% in L.A. over the last year alone," said Kabat, and of those who take advantage of permanent housing, the retention rate is 93%.
She said thanks to the efforts of all involved, many veterans are "firmly on the path to recovery."
The Director of the Greater VA Health Care System, Rob Merchant, says the completion of a companion building in the near future will help to reduce the number of homeless veterans even more.
"It's a step along the way," he said. "There's still a lot of work to do, and if you were to come back a year from now, we would be opening another 400 over the next 12 months, bringing our total number on this campus to about 700 units."
The V.A. is on target to have 750 of its goal of 1,200 permanent housing units completed in L.A. by the end of 2025.
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