Mayor Bass “House Our Vets” Initiative Brings Together, Property Owners, Housing Authority of City of Los Angeles and Key Partners to Urgently Match Unhoused Vets With Permanent Housing
LOS ANGELES – Mayor Karen Bass announced a focused effort to permanently house more Veterans by the end of the year through her “House Our Vets” initiative. Her announcement came during a Getty House luncheon where Mayor Bass and Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) President & CEO Lourdes Castro Ramirez honored Veterans who were housed this year through “House Our Vets”. Newly-participating property owners who helped make this progress possible also attended, including developers who used Mayor Bass’ Executive Directive 1 to accelerate their affordable housing projects for Veterans. Since launching the initiative in January 2025, HACLA reports nearly 400 Veterans have been housed with a 99% retention rate and more property owners have answered the patriotic call to rent their housing units to Veterans. Photos and b-roll from the event available here.
“We have enough housing vouchers in Los Angeles to bring every homeless Vet into permanent housing, and so we need to act with urgency to bring more Vets off the streets,” said Mayor Bass. “Through ‘House Our Vets,’ we are building a partnership that brings together more property owners to rent their apartments and clears the barriers for Vets to use vouchers to come inside. Hundreds of Veterans were housed so far this year, and we will continue to do all we can to make sure no one who has served our country is sleeping on the street.”
For years, Veterans were left on the street because federal regulations prohibited them from accessing housing. Under the old broken policy, Veterans’ disability and benefits were counted as their income and it made them ineligible for housing vouchers. In 2024, Mayor Bass, in her role as Chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness led a delegation of more than 50 bipartisan Mayors from across the country to Washington D.C. to successfully advocate for a change to federal policy so that no Veteran would have to choose between housing and their earned benefits.
HACLA will lead the focused effort announced today to ensure more eligible Veterans secure a "Home for the Holidays" through the HUD-VASH program. Voucher issuance and unit placement operations have been reformed to save time and reduce burdens on Veterans and property owners alike through key actions:
- For Veterans, HACLA has improved application processes by consolidating forms and utilizing pre-fillable forms, enabling staff to issue vouchers faster.
- HACLA is actively leveraging HUD-approved waivers which Mayor Bass secured to speed up the steps from application to voucher receipt.
- For property owners, the agency has mitigated bottlenecks by introducing parallel processing. Unit inspections, rental amount determinations, and owner document collection/finalization for payment are now happening simultaneously, which dramatically cuts down the time required for unit approval.
To support these changes, HACLA has established a dedicated phone line for immediate Q&A and sign-up, along with a dedicated email address and online fillable forms.
- If you’re a Veteran in need of housing, call (213) 252-4231 (M-F, 9:00 AM- 5:00 PM with voicemail capability after hours) or email HouseOurVets@hacla.org.
- For property owners with studio or one-bedroom units looking to join the House Our Vets effort, visit www.hacla.org/houseourvets to learn more.
"With a bold vision led by Mayor Bass and a truly integrated partnership, we've demonstrated that ending veteran homelessness is within our reach,” said HACLA President & CEO Lourdes Castro Ramirez. “By strategically removing barriers, increasing property owner participation, and combining housing with essential VA services, the 'House Our Vets' initiative helped nearly 400 veterans find a permanent place to call home, and the 99% retention rate is a testament that a nimble, cross-sector partnership is working for our veterans."
Earlier this year, “House Our Vets” launched an outreach campaign calling on L.A. property owners to rent their apartments to formerly homeless Veterans. Stevie Wonder joined the cause, putting out the call on the radio and TV. Property owners benefit from guaranteed rent payments while contributing to this patriotic effort. In the coming months, a new public campaign will launch to help Veterans tap into housing vouchers and other resources.
Since taking office, Mayor Bass has employed new strategies to house Veterans:
- Through the new House Our Vets initiative, a partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, nearly 400 Veterans were housed with a 99% retention rate through the HUD-VASH program. The new campaign brought together the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, the Greater Los Angeles REALTORS and U.S. Vets to join in an effort to get more landlords to accept HUD-VASH vouchers now that the policy has changed.
- Mayor Bass has expedited access to housing for Veterans by securing waivers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that created more flexibility to move people into housing faster.
Mayor Bass has led with unprecedented urgency to address homelessness in L.A. By breaking with the previous status quo, the city has seen a historic, consecutive two year decline in homelessness, a first for Los Angeles. At the end of 2024, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a 23% decrease in Veteran homelessness.
Through her Inside Safe initiative, thousands of Angelenos voluntarily came inside, permanent housing placements are at an all time high and Los Angeles has seen a 17% decrease in street homelessness since Mayor Bass took office. In Congress, Mayor Bass worked with her fellow congressmembers and then Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough to ensure permanent housing was available to Veterans on the West L.A. VA Medical Center campus.