Evidence of meeting #21 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 family.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
In the transition from homelessness to an active file, that must be one of your biggest rewards, to have someone agree that they should accept this help. Tell me about that.
Co-founder, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
Yes. When someone who has been living on the street for a number of years finally decides that enough is enough and they're going to accept the help.... We have a veteran right here in Ottawa actually who, as I said earlier, we helped transition from the shelter to his own apartment, to a job, and now he volunteers with our team here in Ottawa. That is the biggest reward: when they say that they'll accept the help.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Is there any assistance from the operators of shelters like the Salvation Army themselves? Do they have an eye for the people you're trying to find?
Co-founder, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
Yes. We've developed good relationships with the majority of shelters across the country. We work with the Salvation Army quite closely. Some shelters have better systems in place than others do. I know the Salvation Army here in Ottawa, for example, has a housing specialist who will help a person staying there to navigate housing. They will usually call us and bring us in to collaborate with them to try to solve the situation.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I think all of us on this committee are really keen. We understand the need for more resources. That's not the direction we have; it's moving people into the situations that are available to them in terms of services, and so on. I think we need to put a lot of thought into the kinds of things you're doing and the Vanier Institute is doing, and blend them all into a cohesive package. The past experience of many of the veterans we have talked to, especially younger veterans, is that there are gaps that are being filled with stopgaps. We need to bring them into a full, cohesive program so that we can give our veterans the confidence they should have that they are part of a family and that they will be looked after.
Thank you all for your presentations today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
We're just going to split up the second round to get out of here in time. We'll start with Doug. He'll have three minutes. I believe Cathay and Alupa are going to split three minutes. Alaina would have three, and then, in fairness, we'll bring in Ms. Mathyssen for one minute at the end.
Let's start with Mr. Eyolfson.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
All right. Thank you.
There was a study done at the University of Western Ontario that referred to how the transition from military life to unstructured life was a very vulnerable period. We may have touched on this. I'm assuming that if you intervened at this point, from the Veterans Affairs point, you might help to minimize the number of people becoming homeless, or decrease the chance that they would become homeless.
What would be the biggest impact that Veterans Affairs could have? What's the biggest thing they could do to help during this vulnerable transition period?
Co-founder, Veterans Emergency Transition Services
I think one thing they could do is bring in the resources that are available to them early on. It goes back to what we were saying earlier about the department trying to do everything itself. A case manager is not going to be able to solve all of the problems a veteran has. That case manager might have to rely on outside help, like our organization, for example, the legion, or OSISS. It's basically a matter of taking advantage of the resources that are there, and doing it sooner rather than later.
Chief Executive Officer, Vanier Institute of the Family
We can also learn from a lot of the research that's being done on helping people transition into retirement from non-military jobs. We know that those who are most successful start five to 10 years ahead of retirement. We can take that learning and apply it to this environment as well.
Col Russell Mann
I think families will tell you that investing in communication and investing in keeping those families together will greatly increase the odds that they'll stay together through transition and post, and will reduce the odds of homeless incidence. We know the evidence says that families will offer support, but families tell us to help them learn how to handle communication.
In the military cultural context, there's a host of baggage, whether it's mental health, reintegration post-deployment, or learning how to communicate again after we return home. That could go a long way towards making transition work better, and unfortunately, reducing Debbie's number of clients, which I don't think would be a bad thing.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
As you said, there are many veterans who transition well and don't have problems, and you have the other ones who do. How could you better detect the veterans who are at risk?
Liberal
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Did I just ask a really difficult question?
Chief Executive Officer, Vanier Institute of the Family
There's some research being done right now on what the indicators of success are. When those indicators are absent, there is an increased risk of failure to transition well and failure to thrive. Your question is probably three to five years ahead of its time. That research is currently under way. We'll get back to you.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Neil Ellis
Thank you.
I'll just stress that if there are any answers you have after you leave, please email them to our clerk. He'll get them to the whole committee.
Ms. Wagantall.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
Thank you.
Very quickly, we need to make recommendations as a committee, and we want them to be substantive. We hear about the issues concerning trust. I know one of them is with never seeing anything really happen. You don't turn a dinosaur around on a dime, but things need to happen to change the culture.
You talked about DND and VAC working together. Would there be value in us, as a committee, recommending that a case study be done of a scenario where we say there are joint case workers in this circumstance here and here, and try to put some framework to that and suggest we give that a try as a case study—obviously you're not going to implement it right away—to see if that would make a substantive difference?
Col Russell Mann
I don't think that's a bad idea at all. We definitely want to take the insights gained from that case study and definitely have the long view in mind.
Col Russell Mann
What policy and program implications does that generate for us? I don't think it's a bad idea at all.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
You have to start somewhere. I feel like we can't figure out where to start.
Col Russell Mann
Big change starts with small steps, and a case study starts to build evidence that might generate a pilot, which builds a bigger body of evidence and then leads to implementation.
It's just frustrating for me because I recognize the timeline. I'm just working the math in my head thinking that's really long, but in government terms, that's really fast, so let's try for a case study and see what happens.
Conservative
Cathay Wagantall Conservative Yorkton—Melville, SK
So it's a case study, then a pilot project.
I had my staffer try to go on My VAC—he can't set up an account—and he was pulling his hair out. This is a smart young man with eight languages, and he just said it was impossible. Would it be wise for us to also do a case study where we had an individual who had to work through that process come alongside us so we could experience it with them to see part of that? I don't know.
Col Russell Mann
Some of my past experience is in software development, not for Veterans Affairs but for other purposes. One of the things I learned from the industry is you don't develop in isolation. You develop with users influencing the decisions. You have great smart minds who build nice tech things, but if they can't be used, they're not valuable. You need users in there helping to influence that decision.