Yes.
Evidence of meeting #101 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was homelessness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #101 for Veterans Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was homelessness.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Is that component a prominent part of how your organization works?
5:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Multifaith Housing Initiative
The organization started in 2000 out of the archdiocese centre in Ottawa with a working group for the poor. They were looking at how they could help situations for the poor. Everything fed back to housing: food bank usage, higher amounts of hospital usage.... All of these things come back to that one piece—housing—but it's also the most expensive piece to fix.
They decided to tackle it, but they decided to tackle it by engaging other faith groups to work on it. We have eight working committees. We have 80 to 100 core volunteers who work in our organization every month and who really do a lot of the heavy lifting, which helps us to keep all of our costs down.
They come to us through these faith groups. We have 70 faith groups in the City of Ottawa that have memberships with us: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Baha'i, Sikh—I'm sure I'm forgetting some—and Unitarian. We have the whole gamut and they come in and do the work. That's how we originated. It has nothing to do with our tenants. The tenants have no religious or affiliation requirement to be in our units. These groups are just where we get our volunteers from.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Wouldn't that be helpful in terms of awareness of veterans and their needs?
5:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Multifaith Housing Initiative
Yes, it's helpful in awareness of the whole affordable housing issue carte blanche. We do a lot of speaking engagements in these 70 faith groups. They come to our events. They get to learn a lot about the issues around affordable housing, the poor and the shelter usage. Veterans' House has certainly been one of our very large highlights. We recently had a big gala on it and the room was filled with people who came to learn about Veterans' House and support the project.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
The 98-unit building, you started off with regard to the....
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Multifaith Housing Initiative
We completed construction in 2017.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Multifaith Housing Initiative
It was an Action Ottawa request for proposal through the City of Ottawa. How it works is the federal government downloads money to the province, the province kicks in money and they download it to the municipality. The municipality kicks in money, and then they release it in a whole competition and you put forward projects for it. We won and we built the 98 homes.
We won in December 2014. We started construction in November 2015 and we completed construction by July 2017.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Cléroux, is there a lot of difference between a naval vet, an army vet or an air force vet? Is life aboard ship different from life in a camp?
5:15 p.m.
President, Royal Canadian Naval Benevolent Fund
I'm sure life aboard ship is different from life in the bush for a soldier, but there's not a lot of difference between the veterans.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Your organization stands alone, so obviously you're connected to naval people.
5:15 p.m.
President, Royal Canadian Naval Benevolent Fund
That's right. We have helped army and air force members, but they have to have served with the navy at one time.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I see. Could you say there's much difference between a vet of a short period of service—say, a three-year individual versus a 20-year individual?
5:15 p.m.
President, Royal Canadian Naval Benevolent Fund
There is, because of the pension. While I was serving, you got a 40% pension after 20 years. Somebody who releases from the armed forces after two years would have no pension. The person may release because he didn't like the navy or for whatever reason, go into employment and not be successful and still require help. For us, a veteran is a veteran and we will help every veteran as long as they completed basic training. It doesn't matter if they have 37 years or 13 weeks.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
You're doing this pretty much on your own. We set out to try to make things better for veterans.
Generally speaking, are you seeing any improvements, or a better system? Despite the issues that we've been discussing because we're here to solve problems, is it a better day for veterans?
5:15 p.m.
President, Royal Canadian Naval Benevolent Fund
It is. I know there are some really good programs under the new veterans charter. I think it's called the wellness program now.
5:15 p.m.
President, Royal Canadian Naval Benevolent Fund
I think there are some excellent programs in there.
I'm going to give you a story. I hope I don't take too long.
I had a friend who retired many years ago. He was injured. I hadn't seen him in many years. He used to be a navy diver, so he was very fit. He was under the old pension program—the old veterans program. When I saw him, he was well over 300 pounds. I asked him what he was doing. He said that all he was doing was sitting at home watching TV. I told him that he had to get out and do something. He said that he didn't want to lose his pension.
The new veterans charter is trying to get veterans well and employed. I think that's good, but there are still people who are not getting the help that they need.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Phil McColeman Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you for your testimony on all fronts. It's kind of interesting to hear you talk about the pension for life and the fact that it actually does not address the people with partial disability or partial assessment in terms of when they come out. You're right that it addresses the people who are most disabled and gives them something, but the other people fall between the cracks as far as pension for life. I'm glad you said that, Mr. Cléroux.
Also, Helmets to Hardhats was an interesting program. I was president of Ontario Home Builders' Association for many years and that was a program that we conceived with the construction industry on both sides. It's great to hear that you're utilizing that, and that is has grown and it continues to grow.
When you said you won the award for that 98-unit housing, what form of housing is it? Is it low-rise or high-rise? If it's high-rise, what's the makeup of the units?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Multifaith Housing Initiative
It's a mix. It's a complete community. It's two low-rise buildings, six blocks of back-to-back towns and then two traditional blocks of towns with a grande allée down the middle. We designed it literally to engage the community in the programming we have going on there. That award is generally given to for-profit developers. It's not made for not-for-profit developers. Also, an affordable housing community provider winning that award is a first—and it's quite exciting.
