LOS ANGELES — President Trump issued an executive order in May 2026 promising to house 6,000 homeless veterans at a new National Center for Warrior Independence on the West Los Angeles VA campus. The Trump administration’s proposed budget in April included zero dollars to build new housing for the 6,000 veterans promised in the order.

The West Los Angeles VA campus has faced issues including cockroach infestations, open drug use, and prostitution. The campus currently contains more than 1,200 veteran housing units, but U.S. Representative Mark Takano stated that VA staff cuts have left insufficient support staff for those units. "This concentration of veterans without adequate supportive services jeopardizes tenant safety, sobriety and mental health. If we do not act, I fear we will doom this property to become a vast West Side skid row," Takano said during a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing.

Republican head of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Mike Bost criticized the administration’s use of nondisclosure agreements around the housing plan. "Transparency should be a priority, not an option. If agreements, planning decisions or delays are hiding behind NDAs, the committee will demand answers. The American taxpayers and our veterans deserve to know how the land is being used and why progress has been so slow," Bost said at the same hearing. The Trump administration required VA officials and local advocates to sign such agreements regarding the National Center for Warrior Independence plan.

VA Press Secretary Quinn Slaven stated that the VA is implementing President Trump's executive order by reclaiming sections of the campus previously leased to private companies. Slaven said the VA would release requests for proposals for thousands of additional housing units "in the coming days" and had announced at least one request for new temporary housing since the May 13 hearing.

The House Veterans Affairs Committee received the plan for the National Center for Warrior Independence the night before a May 2026 hearing, approximately eight months after it was due. The 6,000-veteran housing figure promised by Trump is twice the number of homeless veterans in all of Los Angeles. The Trump administration also appealed a 2024 court ruling that had mandated the VA build more housing on the West LA campus, despite having declared its own intention to build housing there.