On any given night in Los Angeles, roughly 3,000 veterans are experiencing homelessness. It’s a story Rob Reynolds knows all too well.
“I had really big struggles with PTSD, and, you know, just led to a spiral for me, and I ended up being homeless,” said Reynolds, an Iraq War veteran and former first responder.
Reynolds wound up living on the streets after the West Los Angeles VA declined to accept his service animal.
“I walked directly outside the gates of the VA, and there were dozens of veterans sleeping outside the gates, and I remember just being in shock,” he recalled. “I was like, ‘Wait a minute, why are all these veterans just sleeping right outside the gates of the VA when there’s this 388-acre property that looks like a ghost town?’”
Reynolds has since become an advocate for veterans who are facing homelessness, particularly in the Los Angeles area. So when President Donald Trump signed an executive order last May to create a National Center for Warrior Independence on the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center campus, Reynolds was thrilled.
“I thought it was great to create this National Center to get more veterans on the land,” he said. The executive order directed the Department of Veterans Affairs to construct housing for 6,000 veterans on the campus by 2028.