Veterans Affairs committee  Yes. With our program, The Mustard Seed, when they come in, there is a needs analysis done. There are rules to be part of this community, so this tool isn't for everybody. The idea is that they're agreeing to be a part of the community as an active participant. They agree that

Veterans Affairs committee  That is the goal, yes. I think in—

Veterans Affairs committee  I have a similar response in speaking with them. A lot don't consider themselves veterans if they weren't in theatre. I think that's the issue.

Veterans Affairs committee  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 e

Veterans Affairs committee  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 verifi

Veterans Affairs committee  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.

Veterans Affairs committee  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

Veterans Affairs committee  There is a lot of red tape involved with the process. Once you get through and into it with a caseworker and they're working with you, I think that Veterans Affairs is actually doing a good job. They have a lot of good programs. Too many times, they were shutting down some of th

Veterans Affairs committee  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.

Veterans Affairs committee  There are a lot of veterans you can't find across Canada. I met with a gentleman on the border of B.C. and Alberta. There are vets who are living in the woods. They're bunkered down. Every so often forestry comes in and kicks them out, and they have nowhere to go.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think the veterans we talked about are not all suffering medically from post-traumatic stress. A large group are, but we start to see post-traumatic stress a number of years after they've left service. In talking to them, we're finding they're disengaging from the family unit;

Veterans Affairs committee  I do.

Veterans Affairs committee  I think there is room to build. At the same time, we found, in talking to our vets, that we can't take them away from their street family. There is a sense of security in having that. What we're finding—and Tim maybe would agree—is that a large percentage of our homeless vets are

Veterans Affairs committee  I appreciate your taking the time to listen to what we have to say. We created the Homes for Heroes Foundation three years ago now. The goal was to develop a system through which we could help our homeless veterans across the country. Our goal is to build villages of tiny homes