That's an excellent question. I'm one of the co-leaders of the Winnipeg site for the Mental Health Commission's homelessness project. As you're aware, the Housing First initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada has five cities, and part of that is a small but significant proportion who are veterans.
I do think that mental illness can impact on personal income and household income and lead to what's been called “social drift”. Also, if you have financial strain and you're in the United States, you have financial strain all the time right now. There have been household income and financial stressors around the world. We've done studies on this showing it has an independent risk for mental health problems, as well as suicide.
As you're saying, there's a strong link between homelessness and financial stress and mental health, and it's a bi-directional relationship. If you're depressed and you can't work, then you're on disability, which can then lead to financial problems. On the other side as well, if you had financial changes or a job loss, whether you're in the military or moving from the military into life after service, it's a very important issue.
I don't want to get into the homelessness study, but I think one of the key questions the homelessness study is trying to address is the idea of housing first. Rather than treating the mental illness and then the person gets into housing, it's trying to go after it from a housing first approach. I think that is the right way.
We were invited from Winnipeg because of our work in aboriginal and mental health. I think you'll hear positive stories from that study.