There are so many good-news stories. I think the bottom line for us is that our mission was simple. We just wanted to prevent homelessness, hunger, isolation and ultimately veteran suicide. That was as simple as we made it. I can tell you, because we have a new system now where we can track things better, that in the last two years, we've helped over 1,900 veterans with food, housing, making a car payment, paying for a dog's surgery or whatever the case may be.
I can tell you about a veteran in the RCMP who called about a month ago. He said, “Today is my last day. I'm done.” I said, “What is it you need?” He said, “I'm living in a tent in Fort St. John and I have nothing. I'm done.” I said, “What's the most critical thing you need today?” He said, “They're going to repossess my truck.” That cost our company $4,700, but that was okay. Winter was coming, and that was the only other option he would have had if he'd refused to get help from us, so we paid his truck payment. We got him out of the tent.
He was living in a hotel—I'll tell you that hotels are not cheap; they run about $3,500 to $4,500 a month—but he is now in stabilized housing. He calls us every day. He sent me a letter the other day. I think the most powerful thing about that letter was that he said, “Marie, my kids may never meet you, but they will know that you saved their dad's life.” Those kinds of things are so important to us. It was a truck payment. It was a vehicle, but that was all that man had left.
Mr. McCauley has seen how our Edmonton office runs and has heard from different people at Tuesday coffees about how we've saved their lives or changed their lives. When we're talking about surplus housing, that's just one small part of it. The more we can gather together to support our veterans, that's what we need to be doing. Yes, we have lots of great stories, but we have a lot of tough ones too.