A recent investigative video by James Li describes what it calls a “$10 billion California homeless scam,” alleging a staggering fraud centered on the West Los Angeles Soldiers’ Home, one of the most historically significant veteran properties in the United States.
According to the video, the controversy involves more than 1,000 acres of donated and deed-restricted land in West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, originally given to the fedThis land has been systematically diverted away from its intended purpose while thousands of veterans remain unhoused in Los Angeles.
The Original Purpose of the Soldiers’ Home
In 1888, prominent philanthropists and landowners including Senator John P. Jones, Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker, Colonel Robert S. Baker, and members of the Wolfskill family donated hundreds of acres of prime land to establish the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. These donations were governed by restrictive covenantsrequiring the land to be used as a permanent Soldiers’ Home for veterans.
For nearly 80 years, that promise was honored. The Soldiers’ Home functioned as a self-sustaining city, housing more than 4,000 disabled and homeless veterans rent free. The property included barracks, hospitals, theaters, a chapel, a trolley station, and vocational services. Veterans lived, healed, and rebuilt their lives there exactly as the donors intended.
The Sylmar Earthquake and the Eviction of Veterans
The video claims a major turning point occurred after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, which officials cited as justification for declaring historic barracks at the Soldiers’ Home seismically unsafe. However, the speaker alleges this explanation was misleading and used as a pretext, rather than a genuine safety necessity.
The buildings did not suffer structural failures and could have been repaired or retrofitted, as was done with countless other historic structures across Southern California.
The video argues this moment marked a deliberate shift away from the Soldiers’ Home mission. Rather than reinvesting in veteran housing, the buildings were left to decay, creating a pathway for demolition, vacancy, and eventual redevelopment.
From Soldiers’ Home to Commercial Leasing
Following the displacement of veterans, the video alleges that the Department of Veterans Affairs began ignoring the original deed restrictions, gradually leasing portions of the Soldiers’ Home to outside entities through so-called “enhanced use leases.”
By the 1990s and 2000s, the land had become what the video describes as a patchwork of commercial and institutional uses, while veteran homelessness in Los Angeles surged to more than 4,000 veterans living on the streets.
Entities Allegedly Benefiting From the Land
The video identifies several non-veteran uses of Soldiers’ Home land, including:
- UCLA, which obtained a lease for a baseball stadium on approximately 10 acres
- Brentwood School, an elite private K-12 institution, which secured 22 acres to build an athletic complex featuring sports fields, tennis courts, and an Olympic-size swimming pool
- Corporate oil interests drilling for profit on the property
- Commercial operations serving Marriott hotels and 20th Century Fox, including laundry and storage facilities
According to the speaker, these uses violate the original deeds because they do not principally benefit veterans, as required by federal law.
Court Rulings and Legislative Intervention
In 2013, U.S. District Judge James Otero ruled that several of the VA’s commercial leases at the Soldiers’ Home were unauthorized and inconsistent with the land’s purpose.
The video then focuses on H.R. 5936, the West Los Angeles Leasing Act of 2016, introduced by Congressman Ted Lieu and co-sponsored by several lawmakers, including Karen Bass, then a member of Congress.
According to the video, the act functioned as a legislative workaround, retroactively authorizing leases that courts had previously deemed unlawful. While marketed publicly as a solution to veteran homelessness, the law allowed continued non-veteran use of the Soldiers’ Home.
A key provision permitted leases for services deemed to “principally benefit veterans.” The video claims this standard was exploited. For example, Brentwood School allegedly justified its athletic facilities by allowing limited veteran access during off-hours. THAT IS NOT PRINCIPALLY BENEFITTING VETERANS!
Allegations of Corruption and Profiteering
The video further alleges:
- A private parking operator generated tens of millions of dollars while offering discounted parking to veterans, later bribing a senior VA official
- A nonprofit developer, Thomas Safran, through the West LA Veterans Collective, was tasked with building supportive housing, yet few units were delivered, some charge rent, and per-unit costs exceeded $500,000, despite federal subsidies
- Major lobbying efforts by Brentwood School and the University of California supported passage of the 2016 Leasing Act
- Political donations and institutional relationships influenced land-use decisions
- Certain nonprofits are accused of providing symbolic aid while opposing or delaying permanent veteran housing
The Central Claim
The video concludes that the situation represents a massive, multi-billion-dollar real estate fraud, enabled by political influence, lobbying, legislative maneuvering, and corruption. Sadly land meant to permanently house veterans has instead been repurposed for powerful institutions, while thousands of veterans remain unhoused.
The core message is simple: Veterans do not need symbolic gestures. They need their Soldiers’ Home restored. Public awareness, is essential to enforcing the original deeds, ending misuse of the land, and finally housing veterans on property that was donated for exactly that purpose.
Learn more about Concourse Federal and their involvement.
