Judge orders Veterans Affairs to build homes for ex-military in LA: 'The VA must remediate its mishandling'

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled Friday that the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) must build more than 2,500 homes for low-income veterans.

Carter, a Vietnam War veteran, admonished the V.A. for not properly using the 388 acres of a campus donated to it in West Los Angeles to benefit former service members. He also ruled that the current leases of the land to UCLA and Brentwood School, which built athletic facilities such as soccer fields and tennis courts, are illegal.

"Over the past five decades, the West L.A. V.A. has been infected by bribery, corruption, and the influence of the powerful and their lobbyists, and enabled by a major educational institution in excluding veterans’ input about their own lands," the judge wrote, per The Los Angeles Times.

"The V.A. must remediate its mishandling of this resource so that the land may once again be available for its intended purpose: the housing of veterans," the judge ruled, ending the lawsuit that began when a group of veterans sued the V.A. last year.

"While we do not comment on ongoing litigation, we at V.A. are carefully reviewing the Court’s decision," a department spokesman maintained in conversation with CNN. UCLA and Brentwood School expressed similar sentiments. Further hearings will consider what to do with the contracts of both, according to Carter.