The study your committee had proposed on urban, rural and northern is so crucial, to reinforce Robert's point, and our indigenous caucus looks forward to working with you on that. As Robert mentioned, we have a lot of data, a lot of information, to provide.
I want to reiterate a point I made at the end of my comments. In terms of the post-pandemic world as it relates to affordable housing, probably the most important recommendation we're putting forth has to do with the notion of a federal acquisitions program. In a very sad way, perhaps the only population who may be sad to see this pandemic end is in fact the homeless population because, as you know, many municipalities and housing providers have currently acquired properties on a very short-term basis to provide housing for homeless people. The problem is that when the pandemic is over, those arrangements will also be over, meaning those homeless people will be back out on the street.
If we could put it in place to allow municipalities and providers to acquire those properties on a long-term basis to complement the other measures already in the national housing strategy, then we could actually turn a very sad and tragic situation, this pandemic, into an opportunity to put a real dent in homelessness, while at the same time providing safe and affordable housing to those who really need it.