Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't have the statistics available on that. One of the things I would highlight...because I know that came right from the homeless-serving sector to do that letter of attestation. It was before my time. I had more hair, fewer degrees, and wasn't in the sector yet. It was done

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Part of it is just making everyone aware it's election day. So, those signs, as I said, “Ask me how to vote”, help people be aware of that. It's starting with all of the service providers knowing that that's going on and that vouching is an option for them. The second is having p

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If that was available, but again, it goes back to the wording of the attestation. You couldn't just hand out an attestation to whoever came through there.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If you can attest that they've ordinarily resided, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Obviously people need to be aware of what's going on. I think one of the things, though, that stands to be mentioned to this committee is that, in my experience, people experiencing homelessness are quite aware. One of the things we do see is very high uptake of consumption

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would agree. The vouching process is more effort than the letter of attestation. Currently, it fills in a gap when the letter of attestation doesn't work, so when someone comes in and we can't provide that, we can work with the vouching. A change to the letter of attestation wo

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would highlight that it is just a one-pager right now. The form itself is fairly simple. It just asks who I am, where I work, who this person is, where he works, and where he ordinarily resides and receives services. It would require a change of the language to make it more eff

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sure. When you look at the terminology “ordinarily reside” and you look at the definition of homelessness, those two don't usually go hand in hand. Because of the services we're able to provide with shelters, for some that works. But for the majority, they're homeless because the

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I might highlight that these agencies have limited budgets and they have a lot of important decisions that they have to make in use of those budgets. Ultimately, all of the homeless serving agencies want to end homelessness, which means providing people with safe, secure, permane

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll just paint a picture of individuals who we see this with often. It might be some who do maintain some kind of permanent address. We see this for example with people in cyclical experiences of poverty where there may be a familial home, but they themselves are experiencing ho

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One thing I do know from my colleagues who provide the direct service, the social workers, is that it's that “ordinarily reside and receive services from” that's the bigger issue. They do give out the letters of attestation as people request them. But they can do it only if they

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's different then because…say I'm the nurse at a health centre and someone I know walks in. I've seen them and I know their name. If it matches up with their file of providing services and they happen to live in the poll that I live in, then that is a requirement that is met.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it does.