THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 8, 2024
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs met with videoconference this day at 12 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on issues relating to Veterans Affairs, including services and benefits provided, commemorative activities, and the continuing implementation of the Veterans Well-being Act.
Senator Rebecca Patterson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Before we begin, I’d like to remind all senators and other meeting participants of the following important preventative measures to prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents during our meeting that could cause injury to our translators.
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As indicated in the communiqué from the Speaker to all senators on Monday, April 29, the following measures have been taken to help prevent audio feedback incidents. All earpieces have been replaced by the model you see before you, and it greatly reduces the probability of audio feedback. The new earpieces must look like this. When not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the little circle that you see right beside you on the table. This keeps the appropriate distance between the microphone and the earpiece.
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Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. I’m Rebecca Patterson, a senator from Ontario and the chair of this subcommittee. I’m joined today by my fellow subcommittee members, whom I will welcome to introduce themselves.
Senator Oh: Senator Oh from Toronto.
Senator McNair: John McNair, New Brunswick.
Senator M. Deacon: Welcome. Marty Deacon, Ontario.
The Chair: Before I welcome our witnesses, I’d like to provide you with a content warning for this meeting. We’re trying to be more trauma informed as we run these meetings on very sensitive topics, because we do have audiences outside of this room.
Sensitive subjects, including trauma related to military service, homelessness and gender-based violence may be discussed. This may be triggering to people in the room with us as well as to those watching and listening to the broadcast.
Mental health support for all Canadians is available by phone and text at 988. If you are a veteran, you can call 1-800-268-7708 to speak to a mental health professional right now. These numbers will also be broadcast during the meeting. Senators and parliamentary employees are also reminded that the Senate’s employee and family assistance program is available to them and offers short-term counselling for both personal and work-related concerns as well as crisis counselling.
I’d now like to welcome today’s witnesses. We have Dr. Cheryl Forchuk, who is a Distinguished University Professor of Nursing and Psychiatry at Western University. We have Ms. Jan Richardson, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing at Western University. We have Sandrine Desforges and Mr. Anmol Gupta by video. They are Masters graduates of Public Policy at McGill University and co-authors of Addressing Veteran Homelessness in Canada, a report for the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, July 2023.
Thank you all for joining us today. We’ll begin by inviting our witnesses to provide opening remarks to be followed by questions from our members. Please keep in mind that you have five minutes to deliver your content.
Dr. Forchuk, welcome, and we look forward to your comments.
Cheryl Forchuk, Interim Scientific Director, Parkwood Institute Research of Lawson Research Institute, and Distinguished University Professor, Nursing and Psychiatry, Western University, as an individual: Thank you, honourable senators, for the invitation today. We truly appreciate it. I think it’s particularly appropriate during National Nursing Week to have a current and retired nurse speaking to you today so you can get a double bonus. It’s also Mental Health Week.
My background is in mental health psychiatric nursing. I did my PhD after many years in practice and moved to research because with so many of the problems we face, we try to find workarounds at the individual level to make the system work. At some point, the solution really has to be about how we make the system work. Therefore, I tend to look at things from a systems level with my research.
In the last 25 years, I have done research related to homelessness and different subgroups because of the overrepresentation of people with mental health challenges, including addiction, in that population. I look for interventions for specific subgroups — which has included veterans — from people with lived experiences as well as people working on the front line.
With this line of research that we’ve done, we actually completed the first Canadian study of Canadian veterans experiencing homelessness to understand their perceptions of what led them to homelessness and what was needed to exit homelessness. We asked them, if they were designing a program, what it would look like. What would be the principles we would need to have in place?
We found it was very different than the existing literature because over 90% of the studies on this topic come from the U.S. But context and culture matter. When we look at the American literature, for example, people become homeless very soon after leaving the service, and PTSD was very highly stressed as an underlying cause of homelessness.
I want to say that PTSD is a serious issue for Canadian veterans as well, leading to suicide, family breakups and reduced quality of life. It is the most common problem we see, including in our local operational stress injury clinic — we do have one of the sites in Ontario at the hospital site where I am the acting scientific director. However, the second-most common problem we see in these clinics is around addiction, and that is what the homeless veterans spoke to us about. In particular, it was alcoholism, and they very much related that to the military culture as a drinking culture in many ways.
Substance use is often secondary to PTSD. Probably anyone who knows what PTSD is thinks that alcoholism is, of course, often a symptom of PTSD. In fact, what we saw was primary alcoholism. This is very important to understand because the interventions they suggested were not what you would use at the beginning of recovery from PTSD. For example, addiction very commonly results in a very negative self-concept. One of the reasons the veterans we spoke to often didn’t identify as veterans was because they felt it was denigrating the title of veteran to have fallen so low and to be in this situation. They knew they could get more personal help but that it would look bad on veterans as a whole. When they talked about what they needed for recovery, part of that journey was to reclaim that identity as a veteran. That was one of the first things they wanted. If it was PTSD, you would not immediately be putting that in somebody’s face.
Some of the issues with that were around peer support from someone who understood the complex differences between military culture and homeless culture — I can speak more to that later if you want — and that they needed harm reduction strategies because they had often been serious alcohol use for 10 or 20 years. It was not a simple matter of stopping. Very often, programs that they would seek had a zero tolerance for substance use, which made it impossible for them to access services.
They also needed structure and to learn how to create structure. They often had a cycle of getting housing and losing housing. People don’t like to see a homeless veteran.
We took their suggestions and had a project in four cities. Jan led the implementation and evacuation. It worked. We only had two veterans return to homelessness.
I’ll say that any of the research we talk about is in partnership with many other groups, including the Royal Canadian Legion, the operational stress injury clinics and Veterans Affairs Canada. I will also talk with further during questions later, if you want, about some of the unmet needs that we found particularly around women’s and Indigenous people’s homelessness, but I know I’m out of time right now.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Forchuk. That was very interesting. I already have questions. Next I would like to pass the microphone to Ms. Richardson.
Jan Richardson, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, Faculty of Health Science, Western University, as an individual: Honourable senators and staff, thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. Although I’m retired now, my work spanned several decades working with individuals and families, including veterans experiencing homelessness.
My remarks focus on three questions. First, how do we stop the influx of veterans into homelessness; in other words, how do we prevent homelessness? We want homelessness to be rare, and if it does occur, we want it to be brief and not repeated. Second, how best can we facilitate the outflow of veterans out of homelessness, particularly for veterans who are experiencing persistent and chronic homelessness? Third, how can the Veterans Well-being Act help?
A comprehensive response to all three questions is integral to lasting successful solutions. Fortunately, we have available worldwide evidence, with significant contributions from Canada — vast and promising practices to working with veterans experiencing homelessness and their efforts to transition to achieving housing stability. We’ve learned a few things along the way. One size does not fit all. One type of service or housing will not meet all the needs of those who need help. Veterans want choice; they want choice of housing, choice of the type of support and choice to change when they’re ready.
From the safety and well-being of “home,” a veteran is more able to work through the issues and challenges that led to them becoming and remaining homeless. A harm-reduction or housing-first housing stability approach is preferred.
Support and collaboration include an integrated and shared response with both home-serving organizations and veteran-serving organizations, work in a continuous improvement- and change-focused environment; adapting and phasing in and phasing out initiatives as need and evaluation dictates.
The model related to housing stability is “the right housing at the right time with the right level of support.” From our research, one community stakeholder stated:
I’m so proud of this work . . . Shifting and changing the way we do things to be better. To do right by the veterans.
By solving homelessness for veterans experiencing persistent and chronic homelessness, the path toward solving moderate forms of homelessness is much easier. Prepare for the worst or the most intense involved. Develop policy and solutions around those with the highest levels of need.
When public policy is designed with the aim to serve those with average or modest needs, then we can anticipate the design of the funding, the directives, procedures and training will focus on that type of client. Alternatively, policy designed to target the well-being of those with the highest acuity — including veterans living with co-occurring and complex issue such as homelessness, addiction, mental illness, and complex health and justice issues — will be designed with the flexibility needed in concert with community agencies and systems to have a coordinated plan. It also assists when recognizing the unique needs of Indigenous veterans, women veterans, LGBTQ2 veterans and, in particular, those veterans who are disenfranchised from receiving services.
Becoming homeless, remaining homeless and being not homeless each have their differences. As such, practice must be adopted and adapted to the changing circumstances and need.
The influx or working with individuals who are recently homeless is best coordinated through early identification practices by using data-driven approaches and optimizing local homeless and community efforts. While survival gear, food and socks are needed in the moment, practice must be matched with doing whatever it takes for as long as it takes to support someone toward not being homeless.
Invest in the outflow of veterans from homelessness. One type of housing is not the solution. Competitive or private-sector models of housing is only one way to create supply, and we need a lot of supply, including public housing, not-for-profit and co‑op housing, mixed density and shared accommodation options, and rent supplements.
Here is a quote from a previously homeless veteran participating in the research project:
I absolutely love where I live. I’m hoping that I can after this project is over, get my life together and keep it because it’s great. I’m really pleased.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Richardson. That is awesome.
Now we’re going to go to Mr. Gupta. The microphone is yours. Please carry on.
Anmol Gupta, Master of Public Policy graduate, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, as an individual: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to contribute to this important discussion on veteran homelessness. I’m here with my colleague, Sandrine Desforges. We are graduates of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill, where we and two other graduate students co-authored a report in July 2023 on how to address veteran homelessness in Canada. The views and opinions expressed in our testimony today are ours only and do not express or represent the official policy or position of any university that we are currently or have been previously affiliated with.
Our report represents the culmination of over eight months of academic and grey literature research, in addition to interviews with over 30 stakeholders across government, Crown corporations, human rights experts, veteran civil society groups, and domestic and international homelessness-serving organizations. This research led us to create several policy recommendations aimed at streamlining governmental leadership, improving data and knowledge gaps, building housing solutions and enhancing military transitional supports.
Sandrine and I will take the next few minutes to highlight a few crucial policy aspects from our report that we believe are essential. Beyond today’s discussion, we invite you to review our report for a list of insights and recommendations that we may be unable to elaborate upon today.
The most important insight we’ve found is the urgent need for clear leadership at the federal level. Programs across Canada are fragmented, and we have insufficient data being collected to fully understand the scale of this complex issue. It is increasingly clear that more money without stronger federal leadership and coordination will not bring about meaningful change. There needs to be an explicit governmental lead accountable for enshrining the right to housing for veterans.
While Veterans Affairs Canada, or VAC, is Canada’s ministry dedicated to the care and treatment of veterans, there are very few direct housing solutions the department has to offer to an unhoused veteran today. What we know is that veterans have very specific barriers and needs as they relate to housing, and we believe that VAC, better than any other governmental agency, is best positioned to understand those needs and address them. Veterans affairs agencies, as well as countries like the United States and South Africa, have been given the explicit mandate to take the lead on addressing housing insecurity for veteran beneficiaries. We think those examples can serve as a model here in Canada through the amendment of the Department of Veterans Affairs Act.
I will now pass it over to my colleague, Sandrine, to complete our opening remarks for today.
Sandrine Desforges, Master of Public Policy graduate, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, as an individual: Today, small organizations face several challenges in securing financing and land to build veteran-tailored housing projects. Under the Federal Lands Initiative, divested federal lands have been designated for housing other vulnerable groups. However, to our knowledge, land has yet to be allocated specifically for veterans.
Currently, Canada Lands Corporation holds in its portfolio several former CAF bases that could be repurposed to provide affordable or transitional housing. Recognizing that many of Canada’s veterans serve the country from these bases, we believe there is an opportunity to commemorate the divested properties to house our veterans.
We have also learned that veterans feel abandoned by the government, CAF and VAC upon release from their time in the military. VAC has made significant progress with respect to transition in recent years. However, many gaps remain. Many veterans struggle with the lack of financial literacy or integrating back into the civilian workforce, transitioning between health systems and accessing VAC benefits. We believe that preparation for transition should start the moment one enters the military. This would enable VAC to address the challenges faced by veterans more effectively and preventively.
Additionally, registration with VAC has not always been an integrated part of the transition process. Today, more than 300,000 veterans are currently unregistered with VAC. VAC has an opportunity to adopt a more preventive approach that aims to register all veterans. Registering all veterans with VAC would not only enable a better understanding of the veteran population but also facilitate the design of targeted benefits and services tailored to their specific needs.
Notwithstanding millions of dollars invested in addressing the issue over the past few years, thousands of veterans are falling through the cracks of the system every day. No single solution is sufficient, but we hope a report sheds light on the issue’s many complexities, and our recommendations address the systemic and root causes of veteran homelessness and housing insecurity.
While policy initiatives have been deployed by the federal government, Canada has yet to fully invest in any one policy strategy. For that reason, we believe this body has a prime opportunity to build an even stronger framework for ending veteran homelessness altogether.
Thank you again for the opportunity to contribute today, and we look forward to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you to all of our witnesses. We’re now going to proceed to questions. The normal process is we go around the table, starting with the deputy chair, Senator Oh.
Colleagues, please ensure that you are concise with your questions and to whom your question is directed, because we only have an hour for this meeting.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses, for joining us today for this important session. My question is open to everyone.
In your view, what are the main factors contributing to veteran homelessness, and could any such risk factors predict military recruitment? What are the preventive measures that could be taken to address this issue?
Ms. Forchuk: When we did our first study, we did a life course where people talked about their journey, how they came into homelessness and its relationship. What they identified, as I mentioned, was primarily alcoholism. They did not have problems with alcoholism while still in the military, but their drinking had increased during that period. When they were transitioning to civilian life, it was a very difficult process. The lack of structure, when they were used to a very high level of structure, was very difficult, and at that point, their drinking began to increase.
As I mentioned, the first incident of homelessness was often a decade after leaving, which is very consistent with alcoholism. If you start later in life, it often will take a decade or 15 years to develop to the point of physical dependency.
One of the things that we talked about with them in terms of prevention is that there was all kinds of screening for PTSD, but there really wasn’t a lot of screening around substance use, and in particular, alcoholism. Given that you’ve got a decade to prevent a problem, I think that gives a great opportunity for prevention.
When we initially set up the program in the four cities — London, Toronto, Victoria and Calgary — with local community groups, the veterans at that point, at the initial study, said that they wanted a highly structured program that would mirror, in some ways, veteran life. In fact, even when we would find people in encampments, they had encampments where there would be a clipboard, and who was responsible for meals and at which point. They were trying to recreate it.
I had regular focus groups over two and a half years. They realized that it wasn’t so much about expecting the outside world to provide structure. They had to learn how to create their own structure with the programs, knowing that initial need for structure, if they were going to really have that adjustment to civilian life, they needed to create it themselves.
Senator Oh: Professor Richardson, do you have anything to add?
Ms. Richardson: In addition to Dr. Forchuk’s comments, I think it’s easy to miss someone when they’re moving through a cycle towards homelessness. There are just so many indicators. But the moment they become homeless, we want to make sure that we know so that we can put in immediate resources. The longer one is homeless, the more difficult it is to come out of the experience of homelessness.
That’s where feet on the street, if you will, and a coordinated response helps. “Feet on the street” includes police, for example. You might think that they would not be an ally, but veterans recognize the uniform, and if it’s a helpful response from police or a community outreach worker — they ask the question about whether or not they’re a veteran — the more quickly we can attach programs and support to them to stop their experience of homelessness.
We have to move from early identification to immediate response to doing whatever it takes.
The Chair: We have about five minutes for the questions and responses, so this has been perfect.
Another of our colleagues has joined us. I’ll let you introduce yourself.
Senator Varone: Toni Varone.
The Chair: Another Ontario senator.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for being here and for the work you do. Even defining of homelessness and what it means, the spectrum, homelessness continues to be very interesting. I’m going to ask this question initially to Professor Forchuk, and it concerns the Housing First program.
If the government were to implement the Housing First program at scale, how would you anticipate the division of responsibility on this? We know that housing is generally a local, provincial, municipal matter but likely falls on the federal government to fund it or to primarily fund it.
We’ve seen recently the friction on the housing file between provinces and the federal government. Would this have to be just another instance of the federal government giving money to the provinces and keeping their fingers crossed that it all works out well, or could veterans take a more direct role in this, going so far as purchasing, building and maintaining of housing for our veterans?
Ms. Forchuk: You have to keep in mind that Canada is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have housing at the federal level. As you know, that change happened around 1990, and it’s complex. Ontario further downloaded the municipal level with the omnibus bill back in the Harris days.
It is complex, but we do need leadership and strategies at the national level. We do know Housing First is a best practice, and as my colleague Jan said, we do need a variety of housing. So much of the veteran housing has been focusing on congregate living, single site, as opposed to neighbourhood of choice, which is part of the foundational pieces of Housing First.
Think of women, for example. Is it really appropriate for women veterans to be living in congregate living with men? Many of these women have kids. Is that really an appropriate model?
We need to be thinking of diversity. I think the federal government needs leadership on this. They can direct specific funds, but given that we’ve had 30 years in terms of this devolvement, I don’t pretend that is easy, but Canada is truly an outlier in the world in terms of developed nations, and we see examples where other countries have made much more progress, not only Housing First, public housing levels, et cetera.
Ms. Richardson: I would like to add that housing first, by definition, is a combination of the right housing with the right level of support. It’s not just housing. It’s got to combine that complex part about what’s the best level of support for the needs of the individual.
Ms. Forchuk: So many of our veterans, when we have had the programs, have been housed in lost housing multiple times. It’s one of the reasons they are almost afraid to do it because no one wants to see a homeless veteran. They are sometimes just put up in a hotel for a month, but then there’s nothing past that. If you create a system of failure, people are afraid to even ask for help.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you. Did you use the word “devolvement” over 30 years?
Ms. Forchuk: Well, from federal to provincial, and in Ontario, from provincial to —
Senator M. Deacon: I understand why, but did you use the word “devolvement”? Did I hear you correctly?
Ms. Forchuk: Yes.
Senator M. Deacon: I like that. Thank you very much for that.
In that vein, and we have started talking about this, it has to be the right housing and the right supports. If we look at how important the location is for veterans’ housing in terms of access to services, not everyone loves housing in the city. Does housing need to be more in urban areas than not in order for our vets to have direct access to supports?
Ms. Forchuk: The short answer is no. We work with the Canadian Legion. We talk to the veterans about how they first seek assistance. The first place they go is not VAC — it’s the Legions and accessing the Poppy Fund. After we finished our forest city project, we worked with the legions to identify where they were getting the most requests for the Poppy Fund. Jan and I went out to the 10 communities they identified where they were getting the most referrals, and it was often the smaller communities. It wasn’t Winnipeg — it was Flin Flon and The Pas. It wasn’t Halifax — it was Lower Sackville. It wasn’t Vancouver — it was Surrey.
But again, we have to consider the context of this population. They often do not use shelters or only use them when they are in town and are often more likely living in the rough, which is again one of the things that makes them harder to find.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you for that.
Senator Varone: Thank you for being here. Housing is my background, and coupled with that, I served on the Canada Lands board for five years and know their portfolio quite well. To your point, Sandrine, they currently have six former army bases under development, and they spend a lot of money commemorating their public realm space to veterans. It’s a very welcoming spot. Each time that I’ve visited, there were always veterans visiting as well.
You talk about the different modalities of housing. I read the briefing notes, and then I read this report that was generated in 2012-13, so throughout the questions I had in the briefing notes, I wanted to get back to the modalities. You speak about congregate housing. I am familiar with the concept of group homes, having started a group home that, over the last 35 years, has become the second largest in Canada. It works well, but not for everyone.
Congregate living, as you relate it to Canada Lands, is very achievable because it’s not a high-rise. It’s a low-rise, single‑family dwelling that has been adapted to house six to eight different veterans. That’s low-lying fruit, but then you also have the partnerships that you speak of with respect to the community non-profits, the private non-profits and the municipal non‑profits, that part of the devolvement that all goes to the municipalities.
How big is your partnership with those groups? There are about 3,500 different non-profit organizations sprinkled across Canada. What would it take to create your own for a group home congregate setting for those who would most benefit from it?
The Chair: Just as a note, I see Mr. Gupta’s hand is up. I know it’s very hard being a virtual witness. Would you like to start answering this question? If so, I’ll let you go first and then we’ll pass it on. It’s your call.
Mr. Gupta: I’m not sure if my hand was up, but I’m happy to try to answer the first part of the question.
Like you rightly said with your experience at Canada Lands, there are properties currently available in the portfolio that could easily be used to try to build projects that could provide sustainable housing for veterans, and that’s pretty low-hanging fruit.
What we realized from our research and conversation with stakeholders is that we have a lot of small veteran-serving organizations that are really expert at working with veterans, understanding their direct needs and trying to tailor the housing solutions that best fit their needs and requirements.
The approach that has been taken thus far by this government and governments of the past on this issue is to sort of just throw money around. We have learned that it often leaves a burden on these small veteran organizations to compete with the larger private developers to try to get a little piece of the pie. What we tried to propose in our report is what the government can do to try to help these smaller organizations so that they are not competing with private developers, that they can actually obtain land that makes sense for veterans and there’s that novel commemoration piece.
I’m not sure that answers the entire question, but at least the Canada Lands part, the low-hanging fruit, like you said, I think it’s very achievable. We just need to have the right approach to it.
Ms. Richardson: I would just say that collaboration, as you know, is complicated. It’s fraught with a lot of conflict, who’s on first and whose turf it is. We designed our work based on principles of working together and saw remarkable success.
When we travelled to the different communities doing training, we met at the Legion and invited homeless-serving organizations in. Remarkably, many had never met each other before, so partnership is key to building those relationships and trying to overcome that silliness, if you will. I would also say that I think we’re pretty open to any type of housing right now, given the lack of housing. Relationship is key.
Finally, we have to respect that VAC is not often in the position to be the lead case manager of an individual given the complexity of it. They need the community support services and agencies in order to follow up and provide that intensive case management. The starting place is getting together, building relationships and forging that through principles so when there is conflict, those principles will hold you steady. There’s lots more to that, but I would say that’s the start.
Senator McNair: Thank you for being here today. Happy National Nursing Week. Thank you all four of you for your service to veterans.
I just want to go back to something Ms. Desforges said, a number she quoted — more than 300,000 veterans are unregistered with VAC. That’s just incomprehensible to me. How did that happen?
Ms. Desforges: Thank you for the question. There are a couple of elements to the answer. First, currently in the new transition process that has been implemented in the past couple of years, there are supports to make sure that veterans who come out are registered with VAC and can access benefits, but this was not the case before transition processes were implemented.
When they are released, not all veterans directly need to access benefits from VAC, which at the moment is not necessarily an issue, but it can become an issue when they experience homelessness 8 to 10 years later, and then they would need the service but they’re not registered.
When talking with many veteran-serving organizations, we heard that one of the main struggles they have is when they find a veteran experiencing homelessness and they need to confirm their veteran status and make sure they fill out all the forms to access their benefits, sometimes by the time they fill out the forms and get an answer back, they have lost the veteran experiencing homelessness because they are back on the streets and they can’t find them, or the with the delays and complexities of filling out the forms, they give up.
There’s a lot of thinking about how we can make the bureaucratic process easier for veterans to register. How can we ensure that all veterans go through a transition process when exiting the military and they all register before? Also, how can we ensure we reduce backlogs so that veterans receive their benefits quicker? We have heard from veterans that sometimes it takes too long for them to get it in due time as well.
All those factors need to be addressed, but it is an incredible issue that we were also surprised to learn about. We hope that it could help prevent veterans experiencing needs that are unmet.
Senator McNair: Thank you. When we hear that figure, it’s like CAF dropped the ball when they let these people leave and not start the process of what you are talking about — at least wellness checks or something along the 10-year devolution into whatever they are experiencing.
Speaking of the numbers, we have heard a lot of different statistics. We had the ADM from Veterans Affairs Canada before this committee last month indicating that the number of homeless veterans in Canada is over 2,600.
What’s your estimate of what the real number is?
Ms. Forchuk: We don’t know. We do not have accurate numbers on the number of people homeless in Canada, let alone the number of people who are veterans and who are homeless in Canada. I have a totally different project where we have been trying to use health data to come up with more accurate numbers. Using an algorithm on health data suggests that the current federal numbers for the total homeless population could probably be tripled. The current system relies on people touching the homeless sector, be it point-in-time counts, be it Homeless Individuals and Families Information System, or HIFIS or the national database for shelters, be it by-name lists — it all counts upon people touching the system, and you have a group that will not very often be touching the system.
It impacts the total in terms of how many people in Canada are homeless, but it also, particularly with this subgroup, very much impacts the underestimate. I would suspect it’s underestimated, but I would not even hazard a guess, knowing how faulty our current data is.
Ms. Desforges: I can add to this quickly. I support the “we don’t know” answer. That being said, when we were talking with veteran-serving organizations, we received different numbers from 2,600 to 10,000. Again, that supports the idea of tripling the number.
It is for all the reasons that were mentioned, but I’m also adding the lack of self-identification that was mentioned to begin with. A lot of veterans experiencing homelessness are reluctant to self-identify as a veteran, so that leads to even more people not being reached within the HIFIS counts or the point-in-time counts. It is a lot of people.
To add an additional note, we don’t track that over the years to make sure to see progress over addressing veterans experiencing homelessness, so if you look at the National Housing Strategy reports, we don’t know, over the years, if we are making any progress with the programs we are implementing.
Senator McNair: Thank you for that. Every response leads to five more questions. I will defer to the chair.
The Chair: The next question is from me, and it’s directed at both Ms. Desforges and Mr. Gupta. It is about data.
One of the challenges of homelessness is having no fixed address and no way of contacting them, especially in a digital world. There are great challenges for that. The other unique characteristic of veterans is that the numbers increase every year. You have a fixed population in an area but who is a veteran will increase as more people release from active service in the Canadian Armed Forces or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; we must not forget that it includes both groups of veterans here.
My question will go into that level. I will talk about the bases you have talked about. We know there are a number of bases that have become inactive and sold off. Uniquely, they tend to be in fairly remote areas of Canada. Bases have been an economic development process for Canada, so there is the accessibility of Crown lands, but it’s where homeless veterans are located. That is also part of it, if you are going to have them live where they want.
First, where are homeless veterans? Do we know — apart from Edmonton and one of the big bases that was sent back to Crown lands there?
Second, to follow on from that, have we had a look at active bases and the excess federal lands that are available there as well? Have you seen that happen in your study or come across in queries you’ve made? Thank you.
Ms. Desforges: I’ll pass it over to my colleague Gupta.
Mr. Gupta: Thank you, senator, for those two really important questions.
To the first point on the issue of where we build these homes for veterans based on where they are living, as the other witnesses had mentioned, one of the data challenge issues is that when someone is experiencing homelessness, whether they are a veteran or not, it’s often a very transitory experience. You have veterans experiencing hidden homelessness where, some weeks, they might be on the couch of a friend or relative, and other weeks, they might be in a car. They might even transit from city to city.
Understanding where our veterans are currently experiencing homelessness is a challenge that I don’t think we fully have pictured out.
One of the things we proposed in our report with regard to how we can use former National Defence property lands is that there needs to be an evaluation process. Currently, any time Canada Lands divests a property, it talks to communities about what the needs are so it can determine the best use for the property. Is it housing, is it social services, et cetera?
We are advocating that it be a formal process with Canada Lands procedures that, when it comes to DND lands, veterans be formally assessed in their needs.
The Chair: Thank you. We will pass to Ms. Desforges, and then if you have anything else to add, we can do that.
Ms. Desforges: I agree with everything that was said.
One of the recommendations that we have tried to complete or fill the gaps with data. We were talking about HIFIS and HMIS earlier, which are used to track individuals experiencing homelessness. Something we have realized is that, even if these systems are being implemented more and more with the Reaching Home Strategy, these could also be implemented within veteran-serving organizations directly. So an increased collaboration with organizations that serve veterans would maybe enable them to catch them where they are.
We also recommend that, in the data being captured, at the moment, we only ask if the individuals are veterans or not, which, as I’ve mentioned are not always well captured, so we also recommend to add additional questions to get a better understanding of their rank, if they had access to any housing situations, what was the year they were released from the military, et cetera, so we could maybe use that data to see some trends and better understand what might lead them to experiencing homelessness.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We are ready for the second round.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you. There are lots of questions.
I want to come back to something my colleague talked about to make sure you’ve exhausted the possible response. That was around the numbers and getting a sense — because the first few meetings, I almost felt like we were faking it in a way; we were trying to grasp on what we were talking about. We talked about some ways to get these numbers and a more accurate set of data as a starting point or a baseline.
I’m just wondering if there’s anything else that veteran services organizations can do in getting a more accurate count of the number of vets experiencing homelessness — something you wished were being done is not being done — sort of like a last call on that question part, if you don’t mind.
The Chair: As chair, I just have to intervene very quickly because of our time. We only have about two minutes per round for our witnesses, just so you know. Please carry on.
Ms. Forchuk: One question we found people were more comfortable with is this: Have you served the country? That is as opposed to whether someone is a veteran. It is because of this issue around titling.
The other thing to keep in mind is that with that national data, because it’s focused on the homeless-serving sector, there are only something like 78 communities in the country that actually contribute to that data. The smaller rural communities have no data, other than groups, such as the Royal Canadian Legion, which often do have by-name lists, and they do encompass those smaller communities.
In our national study, we did on trying to find better methods, we found that the most common way across the entire country for calculating homelessness is an Excel spreadsheet on somebody’s computer that is not shareable.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I do apologize. We will keep moving on. Perhaps the next question will bring it out.
Senator Varone: I have difficulty as a new senator where I know where the solutions are, and in private business you know how to action them. You just get your hands dirty and you fix the problem. What are your expectations of us here?
Ms. Richardson: Thank you for the question. I think we have to get to the work. We get so caught up in the circle of conversation that we forget to actually get started. I think we’re beyond understanding as a country that we have a significant crisis related to homelessness, and that means we need to act —and act efficiently, directly — and also I would say not on one‑offs but to believe in evaluation-focused work that adapts to and adopts the changing circumstances. One size does not fit all, but let’s get going.
Ms. Desforges: If I can go ahead, I have three points for you. The first was mentioned by my colleague Anmol Gupta about reviewing the Department of Veterans Affairs Act to formally include the right to housing for veterans within the role of Veterans Affairs, so that is the first element.
The second element was not mentioned already but is about the definition of veterans. If you look at the definition of veterans from Veterans Affairs, it says that a veteran needs to be someone who served, completed basic training, but also was honourably discharged. We have seen in our interviews that a lot of individuals who were dishonourably discharged were more at risk of experiencing homelessness but don’t access the same benefits because they are not recognized as a veteran, so consider that definition.
The third element is really to focus on prevention. How can we stop homelessness from happening altogether, and we think that increased collaboration between CAF and VAC at that transition period can really improve that process so it doesn’t happen later down the line.
The Chair: Thank you very much. That’s awesome.
Senator McNair: Just very quickly, I’ll tie onto what Senator Varone had asked and your response. Putting it in the legislation is one step, but as your colleague said, it’s assigning responsibility at the federal level, and I think everyone’s of the view VAC is the right place for that to be.
Ms. Forchuk: We had discussions when we went to the 10 communities and various groups — because we had the homeless sector and the veteran-serving sector, including Veterans Affairs Canada — about who was the appropriate group. One of the problems was in some ways philosophical, and a lot of the homeless-serving agencies said that they would prefer in some ways to be very involved in partnership. A lot of it comes around the issue of harm reduction. If the issue is substance use and you are given an order to stop drinking, you should simply stop drinking. We heard this over and over, and a lot of the veteran-serving agencies said they really struggled with that because of that difference in culture.
The one group we had worked with in Victoria had previously lost something like two thirds of the people who came to that program because when they were found using substances, they were kicked out again. When they went to harm reduction, they didn’t lose anybody, but they talked about how hard that was because it runs counter to veteran culture.
So theoretically that could work but — I’m being really blunt here — we have to deal with some of the culture issues around harm reduction and following orders, if that would actually work. I know we have at least one veteran in the room who would understand, and this was a constant issue.
Senator Oh: After listening to all this, there must be a problem somewhere. Veterans Affairs was supposed to be serving the homeless group of veterans for so many years. Obviously, I think something is wrong in the channel. Something is not going right. What would you simply suggest as to where should we start again?
Ms. Richardson: In my remarks I said build policy around those with the highest need versus a moderate need. We have lots of examples of what happens when you do it around moderate, and one example — and I won’t get into the details — is the practice of lump sum payments.
If you’re disenfranchised and you’re suddenly reinstated, you’re entitled to back pay. That could be $50,000 or $60,000 or $70,000. Imagine, if you will, that you issue that to someone who’s experienced homelessness for 10 or 15 years who also has addiction issues.
If we write policy around those with the highest need, maybe we will get to the training at a local level to recognize that maybe issuing $60,000 in the moment is not the best approach. That’s just a simple example. High-need, local training.
The Chair: Thank you.
Ms. Desforges: Two elements. The first is I’ve been really critical of VAC until now, but I need to mention that they are overburdened and overworked, and the case managers at Veterans Affairs are doing all they can to support veterans, but there are not enough to support the demand. That’s something we’ve heard time and time again. They are not able to fully support the veterans as they would need.
The second element, and it goes back to addiction and all the issues you’ve been mentioning, is that there are a lot of supports available, but the supports and professionals providing them are often not military cultural competent. They don’t understand the culture of someone that went through military, so the service delivery is affected because the veterans sometimes feel like they are not being understood and will just back off.
If we can build a military cultural competency of service providers, of homelessness-serving organizations, of veterans case managers, we feel like the services would be better received.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I do apologize. This is a very quick hour. What you’ve had to say is critical. With the four minutes left, I won’t put in my last question, but I will try and sum up what we’ve heard today.
We know that research and policy into how to address veterans’ homelessness is absolutely critical. What we do needs to be data-driven, but it also has to be suitable for veterans. It’s about the people living the experience as homeless veterans. That is what we’re talking about.
We have also discussed issues such as challenges within VAC. Whenever we say “cut the public service,” you are actually cutting case managers for veterans in Veterans Affairs, if we wanted to put it at grassroots. If we are to use, as you said, the housing first, veterans first, enshrine it as part of the mandate for VAC to consider shelter a right, then we are really going to have to also understand that it comes with a tail that goes to support that.
Therefore, we’re very interested in the reports that you have to offer, as well as the ongoing research. As this study unfolds, we remain very open for you to submit a brief for us to consider as we go through and create our recommendations.
Thank you on behalf of all veterans, including myself, for this work that you are doing.
Go ahead, Senator Deacon, and then I will close.
Senator M. Deacon: I know you had a question. Is it possible to put a question to the witnesses and ask for a written response?
The Chair: Absolutely. My question goes to transition between the Canadian Armed Forces to a civilian. Remember, veteran is one of the intersections of identity. You become a Canadian. Do we have screening tools that can be applied through the transition process from the Canadian Armed Forces or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that can start identifying people who may be at high risk of homelessness, basically a risk indicator? As you do your intake interview with VAC — which now happens; I did that a year ago — areas like this, not just this, is how you create an account. It should also be where the risk factor is.
So that would be my question to you. I would be very interested what you have to say for that. And last, I’d like to introduce another piece of information. It is interesting that the biggest pull on the Legion’s poppy fund comes from rural veterans, which goes to my earlier question about use of lands, which tend to be in very rural communities, especially those that are going back out of Crown lands tend to be rural.
Could I respectfully request a written response? I would appreciate that — also if there are any tools under development.
Senator Oh: I have one last question. Could you add on the information about how many new veterans we are getting each year?
The Chair: That’s a great question, Senator Oh, and we will continue to ask these as our witnesses come through as well.
On behalf of all of us here at the committee, Mr. Gupta, thank you for your patience. Being remote is never as easy when you have live witnesses. To Ms. Desforges, I wish both of you the very best in completing your doctoral work. It’s very valuable. To Ms. Richardson and Dr. Forchuk, thank you for everything you are doing and happy National Nursing Week.
Thank you. With that, the meeting is adjourned.
(The committee adjourned.)