Last Friday members of the Santa Monica Elks 906 and the Santa Monica American Legion 123 delivered mini freezers to 54 veterans at their new home in Building 209 at the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration. These veterans were all experiencing homelessness and now they have permanent apartments at this new building on the VA Campus, each with their very own freezer.
The Santa Monica Elks provided the freezers through a $4,500.00 Welcome Home Grant from the Elks National Foundation. To complete Building 209, the VA partnered with Veteran Housing Partnership and with Santa Monica’s Step Up on Second, a nonprofit organization that operates as the service provider and property manager of the building’s supportive housing unit. The opening of this building on June 16 th was just the initial phase of implementing the draft master plan to revitalize the West LA VA Campus.
The process of renovating Buildings 205 and 208 has already begun, which will provide an additional 100 units of permanent supportive housing. Congressman Ted Lieu remarked that the completion of Building 209 “represents a step forward in restoring the West LA VA property to the Old Soldiers’ Home it was always intended to be…No veterans who fought for our country should ever need to fight for a roof over their heads.”
