I think the first thing is that it's really important to make a connection with the veterans and try to establish a relationship based on trust, so when we say we have these programs and services, we are there to help veterans. Sadly, some of the people we're dealing with are in very desperate situations, where maybe they don't trust anybody in the world. So you have to take time to nurture that particular relationship and then talk about peer support.
We can get them into a peer support program. We can work to get them into our operational stress injury clinics we have across the country with our colleagues at DND. It's an integrated network of clinics, and of course we have things such as vocational rehab, psychosocial rehab--it's all a continuum. We have a job placement program. Just to make a point, to go into a homeless shelter this afternoon and say I'm from Veterans Affairs and I can help you write a résumé is probably somewhere down the road. The afternoon issue may be just trying to create a relationship so the person will feel comfortable.
Through the programs of the new Veterans Charter, we do have things such as disability amounts and what have you. So there are things we can do for people. I think one thing we need to understand is that as we go through these issues of veterans on the street, I would argue we do not have as many in Canada as there are elsewhere, on a percentage basis, because we have a much better social safety net, in my view, than some other countries. In the U.S. they have 27 million veterans. If you look at this on a percentage basis, I think it's fair to say, and I say it in a non-political sense, that across the U.S. the social safety nets tend to vary from state to state. So there is probably a greater risk of some of their veterans falling through the cracks, because quite simply they don't have some of the programs we have in Canada for our veterans.
The key is making contact, establishing a trust relationship, and then starting to branch out into the programs that, in the view of our professional caseworkers, our workers in the occupational stress injury clinics, are appropriate to the veteran's state of mind and ability to cope with some new program or some new services.