Emergency shelters traditionally have been funded with the expected outcomes being more output-based, such as sleep nights, meals served, etc., without any expectation of housing outcomes. Certainly in our experience in the province of Alberta, our funding agreements were actually incentivizing us to be full and not have flow-through shelter, because it was based on a per diem rate. That is the wrong metric to be incentivizing; it should be about positive housing outcomes.
We've worked very closely with the provincial government to incorporate housing-focused outcomes and language into the core service agreements. It's about moving beyond immediate needs—food, clothing and shelter—to actually finding a pathway for people out of homelessness and reintegrating them back into the community.