#115: In May, 179 new apartments opened up for unhoused veterans at the West LA Veterans Affairs campus. Some veterans who have been stuck inside the VA system for years to were finally able to secure housing.

But the development is still years behind schedule and hundreds of units short, leaving roughy 4,000 veterans in L.A. County without a permanent place to live.

This is part one in a special two-part series about the veteran homelessness crisis in LA. Today, we explore how a long history riddled with bureaucracy and red tape within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and other government agencies have left thousands of veterans unhoused in LA – a place once known as the "homeless veteran capital" of the county. 

HTLA and our unhoused communities reporter, Nick Gerda, head to the West LA campus to talk to some unhoused – and formerly unhoused – veterans and advocates, as well as LA Mayor Karen Bass and VA officials, about the current state of affairs for vets in this city.

Guests: Josh Petit, formerly unhoused veteran currently living in a tiny home on the West LA VA campus; Rob Reynolds, unhoused veteran advocate and formerly unhoused veteran; Karen Bass, Mayor of LA, John Kuhn, Deputy Medical Director of the West LA VA