Veterans Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2018

[David Howard]

One way that I proposed to the minister is to say that Homes for Heroes is a program that's going to go across the country. All we're asking them to do is stand up and say, “We back the program, and these are the different types of offerings we have for veterans, as they come in.”

They'll get assigned a caseworker and they're going to get help with education and physical health problems or mental issues they have. There is a whole bunch of resources there.

Partner with organizations, and advise the general public that's what's happening, as opposed to signing large cheques. People don't understand where those dollars are going.

[Karen Ludwig]

What about the national housing strategy? There is a priority for veterans within our national housing strategy. Are you familiar with that?

Has either one of you applied for that program?

[Tim Richter]

The national housing strategy has labelled veterans as a priority. I'm not sure exactly how that plays out in practice. It's still up to organizations like Homes for Heroes to apply for the funding.

I would really strongly suggest that there be some kind of carve-out from the Canada housing benefit for a veterans rent supplement, modelled on the HUD-VASH voucher. Honestly, paying the rent, getting the housing in place and building these partnerships with communities is the key.

Veterans Affairs should not be trying to end veteran homelessness on their own. There needs to be leadership from them, but the community resources are there. I would really rely on and partner with the communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Mr. Johns, you have six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you for your important and selfless service in serving veterans.

I think I'm going to start with Tim. You talked about your five key action items on tackling homelessness. I really appreciate your laying that out. Certainly with some of the models in the U.S., they've been able to eliminate homelessness by 50%. I like your ambition of doing it in about three years. How we get there is what I'd like to ask some questions around.

You talked about, in your fifth item, partnering with local organizations. Do you get any funding from Veterans Affairs currently?

[Tim Richter]

Do you mean us? No.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

The reason I ask is that we had an organization from Ottawa in here on Tuesday that was building some housing specifically for Veterans Affairs. They got some funding through the national housing strategy. Of course, the municipality and the provincial government didn't come to the table with their portion, because they feel that veterans are a federal responsibility. As a result, they're not able to access the capital they need, so they're having to fundraise to supplement the gap.

Do you see this as an obstacle as well across the country? I really appreciate your talking about the rental supplement. I think we absolutely need to do that so you have long-term stable funding for these projects, but also, on the capital side, do you think they should accelerate to a 100% funding model to build veterans housing across the country so that you're not having to fundraise for projects?

As a former municipal politician, I can imagine that the downloading is already.... They're tapped out, and they will look to the federal government for 100%.

[Tim Richter]

It's maybe a better question for Dave.

I think that matching funding is not necessarily a bad thing, but in my view it is clearly an area of federal responsibility.

[David Howard]

Each one of our communities, as I said, costs two and a half million dollars, and we're publicly fundraising for that. We have something, hopefully, in place with CMHC for one of our communities. Outside of that, we have zero government funding.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I really see the important role you play. I think you hit the nail right on the head there, David: Government can't do it all on its own. It needs to find partners that have experience and expertise in certain areas. I totally support that idea.

You probably heard recently that there was a motion passed here in Parliament by all parliamentarians to end lapsed spending. There has been money not spent, and the government hasn't been able to meet half of its service standards for veterans. You've also heard about the backlog for veterans getting benefits.

There was $148 million last year, $372 million over the last three years, and $1.1 billion left from the previous government. Do you see that as being money that could be carried forward and applied to dealing with this issue to help you?

[David Howard]

Certainly. If we took $30 million, we could build one of these in every major city across Canada.

Tim is saying we could end the issue in three years. I think we're looking more at 10 years. We think we could have veterans in our program, on an average of two years each, in 20 homes, and we can fix the issue. I think this is a partnership, though. I have to say that we can build a program and put counsellors in there and make sure they're working together, but having that case manager assigned to each veteran and making sure they get their support is important.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Matthew, you talked about the short-term funding, getting these cyclical funding agreements. Can you again underscore the importance of long-term, stable funding for programs coming from Veterans Affairs?

[Matthew Pearce]

Yes. For example, the sentinels of the street program that we're running is working. We have people who are stably housed. You wouldn't think, if you had met them before we got them into the program, that they would be successful in that way, but they are.

They're facing a challenge. They're asking, “How long will these rent subsidies be there for me?” We're saying, “Our funding is good for a year”, and they're finding that destabilizing.

We're making an offer to someone and a leap of faith for people who have been on the streets for a while. If we can offer them some stable funding over a period of time, and I would even argue that for those for whom it's possible, a declining level of funding.... For example, the rent subsidy is x dollars one year, x dollars minus $100 the next year, and then x dollars minus $100 the following year. Over time, those who can survive in that way reduce their dependency and increase their autonomy.

The horizon for funding, when it's just one-year or two-year funding, just doesn't give us the room to breathe. It doesn't give promise to a homeless person that we're going to be there for them for a sufficiently long period of time. I think extending the horizon is a good investment in stabilizing people outside of homelessness.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Do I have time, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

You have 30 seconds.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'm going to ask Tim this question.

Are you getting referrals from VAC? Is VAC actually sending clients to you to help support them?

[Tim Richter]

We don't do that direct client service, but I know that in communities, Veterans Affairs is actually quite good about referring people into community-based programs. One of the biggest challenges is the sharing of information between VAC and the other services and systems. One of the things that are a feature of our by-name list approach and coordinated access systems, which will be in the new federal Reaching Home strategy, is an ability to share that information with the people who can help you get housed. VAC could have a bunch of information on a former soldier, but they can't actually share that information with the people they're referring clients to all the time, or vice versa.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I just worry about VAC referring to external organizations without funding those organizations as well, and it's necessary. They're referring their clients and then not sending funding to those organizations that are picking up the slack.

[The Chair, Liberal, Neil Ellis]

Thank you.

Mr. Chen, you have six minutes.

[Shaun Chen]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Mr. Howard and Mr. Richter for joining us today in our meeting.

I really appreciate and value the optimism, Mr. Richter, that you shared. You said that we know what to do and we know how to do it. We pointed out in today's meeting the fact that in the United States, the number of homeless veterans has been reduced from 2009 to 2017 by a half. It was originally 73,000 and went down to approximately 40,000. In Canada we don't have data prior to 2015, but the 2015 report identified that there were 2,250 homeless veterans using shelters in our country.

Data collection, of course, as you point out, is very important. How do you think we can better capture some of the homeless veterans who are not using shelters? You've pointed out that some are out there living in parks. How do we get that data, in your experience, having worked with many veterans on the front line?

[Tim Richter]

I think it's important to build a network of outreach that's able to engage with people. What we find is veterans will often like to engage with other veterans, although some will try to avoid other veterans, to be honest. Some want nothing to do with their past military experience. They don't want to have anything to do with the military.

It comes down to the same strategies with all outreach—getting your boots on the ground, going out looking for them, and partnering with people. For example, here in Calgary there's a fantastic partnership between the homeless system and the police service and by-law services. The police and by-law services are out everywhere all the time. In fact, at one point the police helicopter in Calgary was helping us find people sleeping in the woods. All homeless people at some point or another will touch a service, and so we need to be ready to engage them when they touch that service, and we need to be looking for them. Again, it's thinking about the homeless system as bigger than just the shelter system and having a comprehensive approach to outreach.

[Shaun Chen]

That's an excellent point. I know, Mr. Howard, you talked about having wraparound services when you built those villages for the homeless veterans. Can you talk about what those wraparound services are? I think it aligns very much with what Mr. Richter just talked about in terms of having a comprehensive approach.

[David Howard]

Yes, I think that's important.

In Calgary, The Mustard Seed is a social service provider we have partnered with. A veteran would come into the program and needs analyses are done with them. Then in turn there has to be verification that they're a veteran. The minute that verification occurs, they're assigned a caseworker from Veterans Affairs. The sharing of that information in regard to.... There aren't groups across Canada. I couldn't go in and verify if somebody's a veteran. We can only do it through Veterans Affairs, and that's a difficult thing. Sharing of information, I think, is one of those points.

The goal in having those wraparound services is to arm them, get an understanding of who they are, get an understanding of what their needs are, and then arm them with the tools and the resources within the community to help them become better. That's what we've been told by the veterans themselves. If there are drug issues, if there's post-traumatic stress, a physical handicap, unemployment, retraining that needs to happen, education and so forth, we can offer all those services.

[Shaun Chen]

Mr. Howard, you would know that nine of the federal VAC offices that were shut down have been reopened over the past three years, and an additional office was opened in Surrey. VAC is working very hard to further their outreach into northern and indigenous communities as well. In terms of that federal leadership, we've seen the $10 billion in investments that have been made over the past three years.

What else do you see us doing? Do you feel there is a need for more VAC offices to be opened? Do you feel that the partnership with the various organizations needs to be expanded? I know that funding opportunities like the veteran and family well-being fund are available for organizations to apply to. How do you see us moving forward and working together to ensure that our veterans are well served and that those homeless veterans are not on the streets or living in the woods?

[David Howard]

First off, I think it's great that more offices have opened. I think that's important. With regard to the veterans well-being fund, just look at the number of applicants. There were 280 or 300 applicants across the country, and there were even more who applied for this and they extended it even further. That shows a lack of support and resources for the people who are trying to help.

I think Veterans Affairs can work more closely with organizations, whether they are funding them or not. I don't really understand why.... If Veterans Affairs isn't funding a group like, let's say, Homes for Heroes, there's no reason they can't do outreach to us, see what we're doing within the community, make a partnership with us and ask how we can help each other. Just because the funding isn't there doesn't mean that Veterans Affairs doesn't have the resource officers and case managers who can make that connection.