Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Simply put, NDP-5 deals with the issue we heard from people who deal with the homeless around how they operate presently. It is an arrangement that allows a person who is a client of an agency--that is, someone whose only residence, if you will, is a shelter--to have someone to establish that fact and those criteria. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a home or an apartment, it's not hard to establish residence. However, it is a challenge for those who are most vulnerable.
We have a present practice, a fairly recent one, of having people who work in these agencies vouching not for the purposes of getting on a list, but for the fact that they are staying at this place and that it can be established as their residence. It simply puts into place in this bill a process and a practice presently being used, since witnesses mentioned other concerns about what would happen if we didn't have this process. The net effect is that we would be discounting many people because they wouldn't be able to establish a residence. This is simply a way of avoiding that, Mr. Chair.