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Two members of the D.C. Council say they have a play to end homelessness throughout the city, possibly within a decade. One possible avenue to the necessary funding? Sales taxes on products purchased on the Internet.

The plan comes by way of Councilmembers Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), who say collecting Internet sales taxes could be an easy solution to coming up with most of the $53 million in annual funding recommended last month by District’s Interagency Council of Homelessness. The council, which comprises several D.C. agencies, endorsed a plan calling for permanent supportive housing for the city’s homeless population.

Most of that money, Graham and Cheh write, could be raised by levying sales taxes on Internet purchases. They cite a 2009 study at the University of Tennessee projecting $35.5 million in uncollected sales taxes on online purchases for the District in 2012. Based on the contents of the Tennessee paper, Cheh and Graham estimate D.C. is missing out on $42 million in tax revenue this year and $45 million the next.

“We propose that we seize this opportunity and dedicate these funds to ending homelessness in the District,” they write. To that end, Cheh and Graham say they will introduce a bill at today’s Council meeting that does just that.

But first, the collection of sales taxes on online purchases must first be authorized by Congress. The U.S. Senate yesterday passed a bill authorizing online retailers to collect sales taxes on out-of-state purchases by a wide margin with bipartisan support. But the legislation, the Marketplace Fairness Act, is expected to face greater opposition in the more conservative House.