Veterans Affairs committee  First of all, I'll be mindful of your comments next time I call in to the radio show after a Habs game because I thought I knew exactly what went wrong in that game. Your question gives me an opportunity to bring something into clearer focus that maybe didn't come across: Housin

Veterans Affairs committee  I think it's fair to say that we're in a public education process as well right now about what is possible. We're learning ourselves about what is possible and we can then convey that to the public. I think there's still a pervasive sense that homeless people are almost lost sou

Veterans Affairs committee  That's 6% all across Montreal. Not all of them come to our doors.

Veterans Affairs committee  I don't know the exact number, but the vast majority would be.... To guess, it would be something like 42 to three, or something like that.

Veterans Affairs committee  The sentinels program is largely as Tim described. There are no preconditions. They have to abide by the terms of the lease. They sign a lease, not with us but with the building owner. We have already created a link of confidence with that person such that the caseworker has a ra

Veterans Affairs committee  To add, I could say that one of the things we see that is in common with all of the homeless veterans we're serving is they are not connected with Veterans Affairs. Were they, I think they'd be in better circumstances, and they're not. When we talk to them about that and try to s

Veterans Affairs committee  Maybe David and Tim could answer too, but I'll start. There's a misconception generally in speaking about what a veteran is. Sometimes people think if they didn't serve in combat, they're not an ancien combattant, in French, a former combatant, so some of them aren't sure. I thi

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm not sure where that number of 3,000 is. Sorry.

Veterans Affairs committee  I see. Yes, that's right. We did a homeless count, as has become a common practice throughout large and not-so-large Canadian cities. That count revealed that on a given night at the end of March in 2015, there were about 3,000 homeless people who were identified. Of those, 6% d

Veterans Affairs committee  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 chall

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the rub is not with the role. The role it intends to play is a valuable one for veterans. It's more how it rolls out, and the amount of red tape involved. As the minister had said, there was a previous culture of “how can we not provide support” as opposed to “how can we

Veterans Affairs committee  As I mentioned earlier, the anger and frustration that's being expressed by the people we're serving is significant. Often when we talk about reconnecting them to VAC, they have a visceral opposition because of their experience. I think that can change, and I think some of the me

Veterans Affairs committee  I'm convinced it will.

Veterans Affairs committee  Absolutely. The rates for women are much, much higher. Yes.

Veterans Affairs committee  The turnaround has not been that quick, although I know that's been the intention. I know the intention of this minister. Quite frankly, he's been very vocal about a desire to shift the culture, I think, of VAC. As I think he said in a recent interview I heard, the shift would be