When my mother in law came to live with us she had no current ID so we had to send away to multiple states for her birth certificate, marriage, and divorce decrees to substantiate who she was. It ended up if I recall correctly costing about $300 to get all the documents and required an internet connection, address, and credit card, several weeks, and a car to get back and forth to government offices. During this time it would have been impossible had she been on her own to get any benefits of any kind, get an id, rent, use a library computer, work or really do anything. In the place where we lived at that time—a red state—if she didn’t have a place to stay she could have been harassed or arrested for vagrancy.
When my mother in law came to live with us she had no current ID so we had to send away to multiple states for her birth certificate, marriage, and divorce decrees to substantiate who she was. It ended up if I recall correctly costing about $300 to get all the documents and required an internet connection, address, and credit card, several weeks, and a car to get back and forth to government offices. During this time it would have been impossible had she been on her own to get any benefits of any kind, get an id, rent, use a library computer, work or really do anything. In the place where we lived at that time—a red state—if she didn’t have a place to stay she could have been harassed or arrested for vagrancy.