I would echo those comments. The transition period is really, as was said by the speakers, the important phase for the member to figure out their identity. They come from the military system, where they have access to a range of services. Trying to bridge that gap is really important around identity, financial stress, and as well relationship stress. One of the members I saw was developing suicidal ideation because he was afraid of becoming homeless due to financial losses that he was having during a divorce. We really spent a lot of time working together on trying to help him sort out his financial situation, because his concern was that he was going to become homeless. This is a member who I was seeing at an OSI clinic. We know that financial stress puts people at risk for depression as well as suicidal behaviour, and homelessness is of course a very important issue.
The other thing I'm going to remind the committee about is the “housing first” project that was led by the Mental Health Commission of Canada. In that project, people dealing with mental health problems and homelessness were randomized to get housing first and then support. That project was quite successful, and there were homeless veterans within that sample. We looked at that data; I can provide that.
There's that transition period when there are identity issues and financial issues, as well as potentially relationship issues, that can really put the person at risk. It's hard to predict who is going to be at risk, but knowing that's a vulnerable period, a public health approach might be important to look at it to ask how we can reduce the distress during that time period.