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Veterans hire lawyers to fight eviction by VA
By JEFF TESTERMAN, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- The homeless vets caught in the conflict involving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Tampa-Hillsborough Action Plan aren't leaving their shelter without a fight. The veterans retained an attorney with Bay Area Legal Services Friday, and his opinion is that THAP cannot evict the vets from the Veterans Village shelter without going to court and filing a landlord-tenant lawsuit. The attempt to evict "is really bad for the veterans' self-esteem," said Martin Lawyer, one of two Bay Area Legal Services lawyers assisting the homeless vets. "Under the law, they must give notice and file suit" before asking the vets to leave. That procedure would give the vets living at THAP's one-story brick apartments at 1911 137th Ave. E several weeks of breathing room to find new quarters. THAP made the decision to drop sponsorship of the Veterans Village shelter after the VA cut off a federal subsidy of $570 a month for up to 23 veterans there pending the outcome of a criminal investigation into former THAP boss Chester M. Luney by the VA's inspector general. The VA has also suspended $1.2-million in grant money awarded to THAP to house homeless vets in Tampa, Orlando and Palm Bay. Federal investigators began their inquiry in October after a St. Petersburg Times story disclosed that Luney, then an $80,279-a-year VA psychologist, wrote grants that funneled hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to THAP, where Luney moonlighted at an annual salary of $78,000. A subsequent VA inspection turned up numerous deficiencies at Veterans Village, problems at odds with the glowing inspection reports Luney had filed with the VA to keep the federal grants flowing in. The VA has said it will find beds for all vets at Veterans Village, but some of the residents say they prefer staying to being relocated to facilities generally reserved for addicts and alcoholics. Monday, Ken Shackleford, THAP's resident manager at Veterans Village, kept a reporter from interviewing the vets and claimed THAP had every right to evict the tenants. The reason? The vets have no written leases and pay no rent. The money collected from the vets, up to $150 a month, "isn't rent," Shackleford said. "It's a service fee. There's a difference."
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From the Times Ernest Hooper |
