The Department of Justice and Department of Veterans Affairs just quietly handed themselves a troubling new weapon, analyst Steve Kennedy wrote Thursday in Slate.
They announced a partnership allowing VA attorneys to become federal prosecutors with the power to petition state courts for guardianship and conservatorship over veterans deemed unable to make medical decisions.
"On its face, the policy sounds like a bureaucratic fix to a real problem," wrote Kennedy.
Hospitals struggle when patients can't consent to treatment and the government claims this accelerates care for vulnerable veterans. However, guardianships are sledgehammer legal tools. Once imposed, they strip adults of fundamental rights over medical decisions, housing, and life choices.
"And in the context of homelessness, that authority can become a powerful tool for control," he warned. "That is what makes the DOJ–VA agreement noteworthy. Especially considering the Trump administration’s hostility to people experiencing homelessness, the policy could also allow the government to place some homeless veterans under legal supervision that determines where they live and what treatment they receive."
The Trump administration ditched the decades-old "Housing First" approach that cut veteran homelessness by 56 percent since 2010 by prioritizing stable housing and voluntary services. Now officials are pushing coercive alternatives like government-run encampments and centralized facilities.
This new conservatorship power would create a legal superhighway straight into those controlled environments. A guardian would be able to decide where homeless veterans live and what treatment they receive. Once under guardianship, veterans lose the ability to refuse placements or reject institutional settings.
"Especially with the proposed conservators representing the federal government itself, it is inevitable that many will favor satisfying Trump’s desires over acting in veterans’ best interests," Kennedy warned.
Pete Kasperowicz, spokesman for the VA, told Raw Story in an email that a state court will choose a guardian who is not a VA official. That guardian is charged with working in the Veteran’s best interest and is answerable to the court, rather than the VA.
"Civil liberties advocates have long warned that guardianships can expand far beyond their original intent. Once the legal machinery exists, the threshold for using it often begins to creep," he wrote, later adding: "A program meant for a small number of incapacitated patients could easily start to encompass many more people whose primary problem is poverty."
Kennedy concluded: "The structure of the program, using federal prosecutors to place homeless veterans under court-appointed control, creates a tool that can extend far beyond hospital paperwork. And in an administration increasingly comfortable with coercive approaches to homelessness, that tool may not remain narrowly used for long."
Kasperowicz pushed back on the framing of the analysis, telling Raw Story, "Your headline is as misleading as the headline you borrowed from Slate."
"VA announced this week is not a new policy on Veteran homelessness. It’s aimed at helping the ~700 Veterans being cared for by VA who have no family or legal representation, by making it easier to ensure they can get a court-appointed guardian."
