Veterans Affairs committee  Actually, this is something your hometown of Hamilton is doing really well, by starting with a basis of data. Once you've got a by-name list, you begin to coordinate all the different resources around the system. If you develop the by-name list specifically on veterans, you'll be

Veterans Affairs committee  I think in a lot of Housing First programs, one of the challenges in getting people engaged in the programs is the rules within them. Some will choose the path that David outlined, but there are a lot of others who won't. In Housing First programs, the requirements are basicall

Veterans Affairs committee  Sure. Often people will say that everybody is one paycheque away from homelessness and homelessness is random. I don't believe for a second that homelessness is random. I think, for veterans, that homelessness is fairly predictable. As I said, the work of Dennis Culhane in the

Veterans Affairs committee  Again, I think it's tough to say. My gut would tell me the proportion of veterans who won't want to make a connection with Veterans Affairs or to the military would be the younger veterans. Matthew might have a better sense of that. I think it's where the experience is fresher an

Veterans Affairs committee  I would just say from my own experience that I was in the forces for six years, but I don't consider myself a veteran for the reason that Matthew illustrated. I was a peacetime soldier. If you asked me if I was a veteran, no. That's a cultural thing. However, if you were to ask i

Veterans Affairs committee  May I jump in on that point?

Veterans Affairs committee  Really quickly, I think the first thing that's important is that there is an intent and a commitment to eliminate veteran homelessness and that this becomes a policy of the federal government. The second is to fund that veteran rent supplement program. The third is to partner w

Veterans Affairs committee  I can tell you that I don't believe any of the numbers at this point, because there are varying challenges with each of them. My guess would be that there are significantly fewer than 10,000. About 235,000 people experience homelessness in Canada in a year, and there are 35,000

Veterans Affairs committee  That would take a little bit more thinking than I have done up to this moment. In a typical Housing First program, for example, we can take a chronically homeless individual off the streets, put them into permanent housing and provide them with a rent support and some services fo

Veterans Affairs committee  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 experien

Veterans Affairs committee  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.

Veterans Affairs committee  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

Veterans Affairs committee  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 Ca

Veterans Affairs committee  Do you mean us? No.

Veterans Affairs committee  It's important to know that there are a lot of assumptions loaded into how we're responding to veterans today. There's an assumption, for example, that their disability is related to service or whatever. In my view, there are a couple of things that are really important. There a