By Hector Villagra, Executive Director
In his convention speech last week, President Obama included few rhetorical flourishes, but one stood out. He said: “When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you've served us, because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job or a roof over their head or the care that they need when they come home.” Lofty language, to be sure, but it simply highlights the gap between rhetoric and reality.
As Americans, we proudly proclaim ourselves the home of the brave, but far too many of our brave are homeless. On a given night in 2010, more than 75,000 veterans were homeless in the United States, and between October 2009 and September 2010, nearly 150,000 were homeless for at least one night. Plainly, many who have fought for this country find themselves fighting to survive when they come home.
These figures are tragic, but tell only part of the story of just how deeply we have failed our veterans. Our military veterans are much more likely to be homeless than other Americans – in 2010, veterans represented only 9.5 percent of the adult population, but as much as 16% of the adult homeless population. And our homeless veterans are more likely to develop life-threatening diseases than other homeless persons.
Our veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan face clear risks that could lead to homelessness. Studies have consistently found that a high percentage of these veterans screen positive for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans returning from Iraq in particular are seeking mental health services than veterans of other wars and conflicts. We have fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “off the books,” but it’s high time we accept the responsibility and costs of caring for our veterans. Otherwise, we will leave increasing numbers of them on the streets.
While the president has committed to ending veteran homelessness by 2015, he can and should do more, starting right here in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is – inexplicably -- the nation’s homeless veterans capital, with nearly nine thousand homeless vets. I say inexplicably for one simple reason: the VA owns nearly 400 acres of land in West Los Angeles deeded to the federal government to provide a permanent home for soldiers, and the campus built on that property did just that through the 1960s. The VA could substantially reduce if not end homelessness for veterans in Los Angeles by putting this campus to its intended use. Yet, even as it has leased nearly a third of the property for athletic fields, a dog park, car rental parking, and hotel laundry, the VA currently provides no permanent or long-term housing there.
What’s worse, in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe; Ron Olson, of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP; Arnold & Porter LLP; Inner City Law Center; Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor; and Massey & Gail LLP; the VA denies that it has the authority to provide housing. This is surprising, to say the least. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki has said that permanent supportive housing is the answer. Moreover, the VA is now in the process of providing permanent supportive housing for homeless veterans at another VA facility in Los Angeles. This begs the question why permanent supportive housing remains unavailable at the West LA campus.
Permanent supportive housing is the only option for increasing number of veterans suffering from severe mental disabilities. Without housing, they too often find themselves unable to access the care they need and to which they are entitled. Permanent supportive housing promotes stability, ensuring that residents receive the services and care they need.
A central obstacle to permanent supportive housing is finding the property for it. We have it, Mr. President, and if you don’t want veterans in Los Angeles fighting for a roof over their head and the care they need, use it. Action is the only eloquence that will do.

By Brett Kaufman, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project
Today, ProPublica published an important and illuminating news article and accompanying interactive web feature that demonstrates just how duplicitous the government is being regarding the CIA’s targeted killing program.
As we’ve argued in our Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the CIA’s use of drones to carry out targeted killings around the world, the government continues to claim that it can neither confirm nor deny whether it even has a drone-strike program at all, despite the numerous public statements of government officials discussing the CIA’s drone program. This is an untenable position, and next Thursday, we will be making that argument before the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.
It can be hard to express how truly absurd the government’s position is, but the ProPublica feature—based on a database compiled by the ACLU’s stellar former intern, Emma Schindler—highlights the irreconcilable disconnect between the voluminous and continuous statements of government officials, in both public speeches and statements to the press, acknowledging the CIA’s use of drones to carry out targeted killings, and its ongoing attempt to tell the courts that its drone program is so secret that it cannot admit to its existence in the first place.
ProPublica’s new feature illustrates, in interactive form, the cascade of nearly two hundred statements by named and unnamed current and former government officials during President Obama’s first term acknowledging and, often, boasting of the drone-strike program. By visually highlighting both the timeline and volume of these official public acknowledgments, and starkly contrasting them with the government’s obstinate position in litigation, ProPublica has supplied a fresh and instructive representation of what the ACLU will argue in Washington next week—that the government simply cannot continue to publicly disclose information about the drone program while attempting to keep that information locked outside the federal courts.
The government’s pile of public disclosures got even larger last week, when, in a television interview with CNN, President Obama again acknowledged the existence of the drone program and described five principles that he says guides the government’s drone-targeting decisions.  Further, at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, the President’s re-election campaign distributed a video—a message “approved by Barack Obama”—seeking political advantage from highlighting particular CIA drone killings, including that of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. (The targeted killings of al-Awlaki, and two other U.S. citizens, are the subjects of two other lawsuits brought by the ACLU.)
And yet the government’s position has not changed one bit in court. Stay tuned as we take our argument against the government’s double game to the D.C. Circuit next Thursday.