Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2018

[Dave Gordon]

We have a one-page document for them. When we first started, we had a six-page document, but we cut it down to one page. Veterans just don't want to fill out a lot of paperwork. We have a document that we can have faxed to our office. Depending on the time of day we receive it, we can react.

I can tell you that we have the names of every veteran who's come forward and who we've identified. We can go back in their file and see the help we've given them. We're very happy to say that we've housed about 350 of the 667 that we've found.

We have very extensive stats. We do, as I said, 134 towns and cities; we have found 280 in Toronto, 45 in London, 45 in Kingston, seven in Trenton, two in Belleville, and the list goes on. We have those stats. We can back them up and we can show you the exact amount of money that was spent for any part of that in any one of those towns or cities.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you.

Ms. Lowther, I just want to make sure I have this correctly. You said it's on average 11 years after discharge that they become homeless. Is that right?

[Debbie Lowther]

Yes. We did an informal research survey with a small sample of veterans, and within that sampling of veterans the average length of time from release from the military to their first episode of homelessness was 11 years.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

When you're gathering this information, are you able to gather any trends as to how long they had the troubles that led them to homelessness? I'm assuming that if it took 11 years, they weren't on that trajectory for 11 years. Is there a time frame or are there any common events that you'd say, such that things were going on an even keel for this long and that so many years out, x, y, or z started to happen? Are you noticing any trends in either time frames or events? I know you mentioned some of them, like spousal abuse, substances, and these sorts of things.

[Debbie Lowther]

We didn't specifically ask those questions, but what we do know is that often mental health issues, particularly PTSD, take a period of time before the symptoms rear their ugly heads, so to speak. That is one reason why it takes 11 years. The other reason why it can take 11 years is the fact that veterans have great survival skills, so they can kind of get through on their own for a while before things get out of control.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Gordon and Mr. McInnis, do you have anything to add to that?

[Raymond McInnis]

Nationally we don't have stats on that nor do we have a lot of research in Canada on Canadian veterans homelessness, but in Ontario....

[Dave Gordon]

In Ontario, we've tracked from two and a half to four years, maybe five. We've found that they have become homeless. By the way, our numbers are anywhere from age 17 to 92.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you.

We talked about mental illness. I worked in the emergency department for a number of years, and we knew that the vast majority of the homeless in general—not just veterans, but the homeless population—are people with untreated or undertreated mental illness. Has there been any data on the number of these vets who had any underlying mental health diagnoses before their military service? Is that information out there?

[Debbie Lowther]

Those aren't stats that we keep, but I can tell you that a number of veterans who we have assisted have disclosed not necessarily that they dealt with mental health issues but that they had dealt with childhood trauma prior to their military service. In some cases we know that their military service has maybe aggravated their predisposition to post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Ms. Mathyssen, you have six minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here, again. I think it's a testament to your determination to address the needs of veterans and make sure that those who have been left behind are taken care of, and I am very grateful for that.

I want to start with you, Ms. Lowther. Last time we met, you indicated that your contract had ended and that you had nothing and you didn't know what was going to happen. You say that the funding has been partially approved. What does that mean for VETS Canada? How does that impact your organization and what you're trying to do?

[Debbie Lowther]

Basically we have a very strong determination that we will just continue to continue on. It does mean that we may have to direct some of our focus toward fundraising. We are currently looking at seeking out the assistance of a professional fundraiser to help us increase our private donations. To be clear, the amount that we got from the family and veteran well-being fund was the same amount that we had received previously under our old contract, so it's not that we received less money. What we did when we submitted our proposal was to look at our increase year over year from the past couple years, and we were able to project the amount that we would need for the coming year, but that's not the amount that we got.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay, so obviously you're finding more and more homeless vets and they have to be taken care of.

You didn't get a chance to answer this before. What is your estimate in regard to homeless veterans in Canada? Is there any idea? We know that the department says that there are about 2,250 people who have used homeless shelters this year, but is that just the tip of the iceberg? What is your estimate?

[Debbie Lowther]

On that number, the 2,250, we do know that it was based on a database that's utilized by about 60 shelters across the country. That does not take into consideration veterans who may be using shelters that don't use that particular database.

It also does not take into consideration those veterans who aren't accessing shelters at all, which we know is the more common scenario. Veterans don't tend to use the shelter system. They tend more toward being couch surfers or living in their cars or surviving rough in the woods. That 2,250 is obviously a very low estimate.

I do like Mr. Gordon's comment about how many snowflakes fell in the last snowstorm, because that's about how difficult it would be to capture that number.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much.

As I'm sure you know, this Parliament passed unanimously a motion to take all the lapsed spending, put it on the table and make sure that veterans receive that lapsed spending. It was an interesting motion, with 301 in favour to zero. This motion would have provided about $124 million per year to improve services to Canada's veterans, to hire more case managers and to just make sure that veterans were a priority.

If that motion were adopted as policy—we have it on the books, everyone said yes, wonderful, love it—and it actually were to be put in place if they put the money where their mouth is, would the spending from this fiscal year to the next fiscal year ensure that we would be able to speed up approvals for processes and for applications for veterans trying to utilize the emergency fund?

[Debbie Lowther]

I do think that if that money were to be utilized.... My understanding of the money being returned is that it was not used for the purpose it was earmarked for and that it could not be used for anything other than that. If the scenario were that the money could be utilized in any way possible, I do think that hiring more case managers, and particularly adjudicators, would definitely help to clear up the backlog of clients.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It's interesting, isn't it? We have this pot of money here, but the prescription for it is somewhere over there, so we can't use it. It has to sit in the federal vault, I guess.

I would like to address this to all of you, but I don't know if I have enough time. I still deal with individual cases, with people who are desperate.

There is the case of one young man with PTSD. He was diagnosed quite some time ago. He has attempted to kill himself five times. Every time he thinks that he has a connection with Veterans Affairs Canada, something gets in the way. For example, because of the PTSD, he calls all the time. Once he gets to a certain point in terms of the number of calls, they block him. They cut him off. Just recently, he was cut off on a Friday afternoon, and there was nothing until Monday. This is someone who has attempted suicide five times.

Do you hear about these cases? It would seem to me that if he survives, he is probably going to be homeless at some point. I'll defer to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

We're out of time.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

If you can make it very quick....

[Raymond McInnis]

Very quickly, yes. As command service officers and service officers in Dominion Command, we actually act as intermediaries with the department in terms of many individuals who, for some reason, whether it's phone calls or they threaten someone, are no longer able to work with Veterans Affairs Canada. The command service officers will assist them, work with them and be the contact with the department for them, so that they don't go into homelessness or any other act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Bratina, you have six minutes.

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

This is a good conversation, and we need to have it.

One issue that keeps coming up, which is very interesting and difficult to deal with, is creating a national strategy for homelessness. When I talk to non-military people and chat about my work with the veterans affairs committee, they think that homeless veterans are in the general population for shortages of housing.

I'm hearing—and perhaps, Ms. Lowther, you could speak to this—that there are veterans who are victims of housing shortages, perhaps in the area of the country where they live, but that many of them also have avoidance behaviours, and they just don't want to be part of anybody's system anymore.

Would you agree that it's going to give us difficulties—not that we're going to hesitate or not move towards that—in creating recommendations for a housing strategy? It will have to be much broader than saying to build more houses. Is that a fair comment?