Description
Transcript
Homelessness Roundtable – Interview #2
Ray McInnis - Veterans’ Services, Dominion Command, Royal Canadian Legion)
We’ve been around since 1926 with the Service Bureau. So we provide benevolent funding; we have been providing benevolent funding since that time. We also provide assistance with disability applications and representation in front of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board as well for all veterans and RCMP. In 2010 we took the homeless program in Ontario called Leave the Streets Behind program, and in 2012 we went national with it. So we gave seed money to each command to start their own program. BC-Yukon Command has Cockrell House; that is a home that they own and they have 11 beds and they have three satellite sites. All the other provinces provide benevolent funding. In Ontario alone, since 2010 they have helped over 650 homeless veterans in about 130 communities, providing first and last months’ rent, homeless kits, and we provide free representation as well for everyone. Collaboration is good, but in my personal opinion and the Legion, we’ve been collaborating for many, many years. We’ve been doing roundtables for many years. We now have to see the action. Let’s put it all together so that we can actually move forward with the veteran homelessness problem in this country.