[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 92 (Wednesday, May 14, 2025)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 20369-20371]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-08683]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 92 / Wednesday, May 14, 2025 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 20369]]
Executive Order 14296 of May 9, 2025
Keeping Promises to Veterans and Establishing a
National Center for Warrior Independence
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Our Nation's security,
prosperity, and freedom would not be possible without
our veterans. Many service members paid the ultimate
sacrifice. Many others bear visible and invisible
wounds from their service. Too many veterans are
homeless in America. Each veteran deserves our
gratitude.
Yet the Federal Government has not always treated
veterans like the heroes they are. During the previous
administration, unaccountable bureaucrats treated them
shamefully, failing veterans when they needed help most
and betraying the taxpayers who rightfully expect
better.
The story of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (VA)
Medical Center is indicative of this failure. More than
one hundred years ago, Senator John Percival Jones and
Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker generously donated
hundreds of acres of land that they owned in West Los
Angeles on the condition that it be used to house
disabled veterans. The campus once featured a chapel,
billiard hall, 1,000-seat theater, and housed about
6,000 veterans, but the Federal Government has since
allowed this crown jewel of veteran care to deteriorate
over the last few decades.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (Department) leased
parts of the property to a private school, private
companies, and the baseball team of the University of
California, Los Angeles, sometimes at significantly
below-market prices. As of 2024, there were
approximately 3,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles,
more than in any other city in the country and
accounting for about 10 percent of all of America's
homeless veterans. Many of these heroes live in squalor
in Los Angeles's infamous ``skid row.''
During my first term, I signed legislation to increase
accountability and expand benefits and choices for
veterans in accessing care, and my second term will
build on those efforts. Accountability will return to
the Department. Veterans around the Nation will have
more choices in care, benefits, and services. The VA
campus in West Los Angeles will become the National
Center for Warrior Independence with facilities and
resources to help our veterans earn back their self-
sufficiency.
Sec. 2. Establishing the National Center for Warrior
Independence. The Secretary of Veterans Affairs
(Secretary) shall take all appropriate action to:
(a) designate a National Center for Warrior
Independence on the West Los Angeles VA Campus in which
homeless veterans in the Los Angeles metropolitan area
and around the Nation can seek and receive the care,
benefits, and services to which they are entitled;
(b) work with other municipalities and VA
facilities to ensure that homeless veterans outside the
Los Angeles metropolitan area who want to avail
themselves of the National Center for Warrior
Independence are provided the means to do so;
(c) in coordination with the Secretary of Health
and Human Services, the Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development, and the heads of any
[[Page 20370]]
other relevant executive departments or agencies,
ensure that funds that may have been spent on housing
or other services for illegal aliens are redirected to
construct, establish, and maintain this National Center
for Warrior Independence;
(d) work to restore self-sufficiency and the
warrior ethos among homeless veterans through any
guidance, requirements, or services needed to ensure
that homeless veterans can access housing, receive
substance abuse or addiction treatment, and return to
productive work and community engagement; and
(e) within 120 days of the date of this order,
present an action plan to the President, through the
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, to meet
these directives and restore the capacity to house up
to 6,000 homeless veterans at the National Center for
Warrior Independence by January 1, 2028.
Sec. 3. Voucher Program. The Secretary of Housing and
Urban Development shall, in consultation with the
Secretary, use vouchers to support homeless veterans in
the Los Angeles metropolitan area and around the Nation
with respect to this effort.
Sec. 4. Restoring Accountability at the Department of
Veterans Affairs. The Secretary shall take the
following steps to restore accountability and excellent
service at the Department:
(a) take appropriate action against individuals who
have committed misconduct, making full use of and in
accordance with the Department of Veterans Affairs
Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017
(Public Law 115-41); and
(b) investigate and take steps to rectify the
previous administration's decision to rehire and
reinstate back pay for employees previously fired for
misconduct and direct such savings back toward care,
benefits, and services for veterans, in accordance with
all applicable laws.
Sec. 5. Providing Choices and Excellence to Veterans.
The Secretary shall take steps to increase the
excellence of and options for care, benefits, and
services for veterans including:
(a) within 60 days of the date of this order,
submitting a report to the President, through the
Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, with a
plan to reduce wait times for Veterans Health
Administration appointments that explores options like
expanding office hours, offering weekend appointments,
and increasing the use of virtual healthcare options;
(b) within 30 days of the date of this order,
directing a feasibility study at the Manchester VA
Medical Center and within 180 days of this order,
submitting to the President, through the Assistant to
the President for Domestic Policy, an action plan to
expand services to support a full-service medical
center in New Hampshire so that it is no longer the
only State in the contiguous United States without such
a center; and
(c) in consultation with the Secretary of Defense,
the Director of the Office of Management and Budget,
and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy,
developing a strategy to improve the delivery and
quality of the Department's healthcare services in a
more efficient and effective manner to support
veterans; the strategy shall initially prioritize
implementation of actions to reduce access times and
improve service delivery, to include options for
offering treatment to veterans at select military
treatment facilities and military beneficiaries at VA
facilities with appropriate reimbursement.
Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order
shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the
head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
[[Page 20371]]
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with
applicable law and subject to the availability of
appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
(d) The Department of Veterans Affairs shall
provide funding for this order's publication in the
Federal Register.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
May 9, 2025.
[FR Doc. 2025-08683
Filed 5-13-25; 8:45 am]
Billing code 8320-01-P