About 13 years ago on the Saturday before thanksgiving I participated in a Help the Homeless walkathon in Washington, DC never imagining that one day I would be homeless or what the homeless experience. Being homeless presents its own unique difficulties like getting mail. Most places like the MVA or banks will only take a physical location to deliver mail. I had general delivery as my address when I was homeless. General delivery means the postal service will hold your mail at one of their location (where you apply for). General delivery is only supposed to be for 30 days, but in my case they extended it beyond their policy. I tried to open a new bank account (when I was working in Winchester, VA the employer used a local bank for payroll and didn’t offer direct deposit. The bank I had didn’t have any branches in VA, so I opened a bank account close to the employer.). The bank wanted a physical location to deliver mail to (because they were sending me a debit card in the mail.). So I used my old address, at the post office I had my mail forwarded to general delivery from my old address. They eventually took general delivery as a mailing address and I did get my debit card. The MVA also requires a physical address, when I renewed my tags (I paid $135 for two years for the stickers) they sent the stickers to my old address and it got sent back to the MVA. When you change address the MVA requires that you give them the new address within 30 days, however my new address was general delivery but they need a physical address. When I went to their office to get my new tags, they said the tags came back because I had used general delivery as an address. They wouldn’t accept as a mailing address. I told the clerk why you aren’t going to do a home visit or are just mailing stuff. The clerk said it was their policy only to mail to a physical location and I was living in my car at the time. They gave me a hard time about getting for which I had already paid $135 for. They did eventually give me my new stickers.
More info: fundly.com
