The housing crisis is one that's really in mind for many living in poverty in Canada. For the numbers piece, I'll turn it over to Peter—I'll give him a heads-up about that—because we also contributed to the alternative federal budget, and he has some sharp numbers for you.
That being said, one piece that I want to address here is this issue that people who experience homelessness—when they experience it, when we see these violations of their rights, the systemic discrimination—have nowhere to go. We do not thus far have a claiming mechanism in Canada for those who are experiencing homelessness. There's nowhere to go.
However, there is a real opportunity here, and I'll flag this for the committee, within the national housing strategy. Currently legislation is being considered to accompany the national housing strategy. We're hoping to see a system where we can have a federal advocate have power, autonomy, be adequately funded and be independent from the government to be able to investigate big issues of systemic discrimination.
As we see growing financialization of housing across the country, in cities like Vancouver, Toronto and others, and as we see growing numbers of marginalized groups experiencing homelessness and inadequate housing, it's critical that they have someone to speak to when issues of systemic discrimination exist. There is a real opportunity here. There's a lot of talk about human rights within the national housing strategy that we, as an organization, are very excited about. We're hoping that the legislation that will be tabled accompanying the national housing strategy is going to take seriously the role of accountability through the federal housing advocate.
I will pass the numbers issue over to Peter, who is our expert.