Homeless Connect has submitted its response to the Electoral Office’s consultation on its revised 2022 to 2027 Equality Action Plan.

The short submission focuses on the needs of people experiencing homelessness in terms of the electoral process. It makes three recommendations to the Electoral Office in terms of its action plan. These are are:

1. The Equality Action Plan indicates that the Electoral Office plans to conduct research “to identify sectors of the population with lower levels of registration and from that prioritise outreach programmes.” Our submission calls on the Electoral Office to identify people experiencing homelessness as a group likely to have lower levels of registration and to prioritise outreach programmes towards them.
2. The Equality Action Plan indicates that the Electoral Office should “develop a programme of work with the education and care sectors” in terms of expanding electoral access. Our submission recommends that the homelessness sector should be included in this programme.
3. Finally, our submission calls on the Electoral Office to work with the homelessness sector and people with lived experience of homelessness to make their website more accessible to people experiencing homelessness.

You can read our full submission here.