A day at the Department of Motor Vehicles isn’t a picnic for anyone, but it can be especially trying for people like Keith Butler, who, at 44, has been homeless for about 25 years. Butler says he went a decade without a state-issued identification card, because he lost the one he had and was unsuccessful in several attempts to replace it.
“I kept running into the same wall,” he said. “I couldn’t get a birth certificate without ID, and then I couldn’t get a Social Security card without a birth certificate, and I couldn’t get the ID without the birth certificate or the Social Security card. And I basically had nothing.”
Butler’s labyrinthine experience is far from uncommon among people living on the streets, whose belongings and personal documents are often stolen, misplaced or picked up in campsite sweeps. Patty Warman, program director at the Julia West House day access center, says nearly everyone she works with has faced identification trouble at one time.
This summer, stricter ID standards mandated during the Oregon Legislature’s February 2008 session will go into effect, and homeless advocates say the new rules can only make the process more tortuous.
Beginning July 1, applicants for new, renewal or replacement identification cards and driver’s licenses will need to present documentary proof of their Social Security number — a Social Security card, or a tax or employment record — or proof that they are ineligible for an Social Security number.
Applicants will also need to prove their legal presence in the United States, usually with a passport, government-issued birth certificate or immigration papers. Documents that can currently verify one’s name and birthdate – such as a current or recently expired driver’s license, a military ID or a letter from a corrections agency — will not be sufficient to prove legal presence.
Licensing standards have been tightening nationwide since Sept. 11, 2001, says DMV spokesman David House, as state governments try to protect against identity theft and fraud. Most other states already require licensees to prove their legal presence in the country, and Oregon’s lawmakers are trying to catch up.
But the new rules are “going to be a real nightmare for everyone,” said Andrea Meyer, the legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, and they’ll be roughest on society’s most vulnerable.
Securing an ID card is an essential component of moving off the streets: A person without identification can’t get housing, legal employment, public assistance or even a Multnomah County Library card.
But homeless advocates say the identification process is riddled with paradoxes. For instance, before applying for an ID card, a person may have to request a new Social Security card or correct any errors in their Social Security information. They can do so at the local Social Security Administration — but photo ID is required to get into the building. And many states, such as Butler’s home state of Indiana, now ask for a photocopy of an ID card before issuing a certified birth certificate. “It used to be I could (just) write a letter to them and tell them my mom’s name,” Butler said.
“That’s one of the problems with tightening ID requirements in general,” House said. “You create more opportunities for these Catch-22s. We’re aware of that.”
The new rules allow issuance of a temporary ID, valid for up to 150 days as the applicant hunts down additional documents, but House said that’s unlikely to help someone who starts out with nothing. “You’ve got to meet virtually all of the requirements, and maybe be short one” to receive the temporary card, which is geared toward drivers, he said.
House stressed that the stricter requirements will affect everyone in Oregon, not just those who are homeless or low-income. “The positive side of that is that if it’s hard for you to get ID, then it’s hard for the criminals and the thieves to get ID, too, and that’s the whole point,” he said.
People like Butler, who’ve lived off the government’s grid for years, can be the hardest to help, said Warman at Julia West House. “They’ve collected cans for 20 years. They’ve worked, but they haven’t made enough to file a tax return…they haven’t used the system at all, so they’re not in any public database.”
Fees associated with the identification process can also be prohibitive for many. In Oregon, a certified copy of a birth certificate costs $20 and can take three weeks by mail. A new non-driver’s ID card costs $29, and a replacement $24 — and each will increase by $4.50 in July to cover the new rules’ implementation. Transition Projects, Inc., a nonprofit that helps people transition out of homelessness, spends about $40,000 of its yearly budget helping clients pay for documents.
“We end up turning a number of people away because we don’t know how to get them documents to get them an ID,” said Fern Elledge, the director of TPI’s community service center. “I don’t know what happens to people then.”
Elledge couldn’t say exactly how the new rules will affect her clients, but she said that increasing requirements can only make things harder.
The DMV has set up a customer care unit to help people navigate documentation mazes, but “there will be cases where we can’t do it,” House said. “That’s going to create inconvenience for people, but that’s one of the side effects any time you tighten ID laws.”
“Inconvenience” may seem like an understatement to some. Warman at Julia West House remembers a case where a man defecated in his pants at the hospital. Nurses threw out the pants with the man’s wallet inside, leaving him without identification. Even if the wallet itself was soiled, Warman said, “We would have rather washed that stuff off than gone through the process of getting him a new ID.”
This January, Keith Butler finally nailed down an ID card — no thanks to the system, as far as he’s concerned. Butler said one DMV worker bent the rules for him, which he interpreted as a stroke of providence. “God finally reached out and said, ‘Okay, it’s time, here’s your ID.’ That’s what happened.”
