Catch-22

As a social worker, I often find myself thinking or saying, “this feels like a Catch 22 situation.” Sadly the system in place to assist low-income individuals striving to improve their current situation is often hard to navigate.

I will describe just one simple scenario that I see many times every week. A guest comes in seeking assistance with getting a California ID so they can get on General Assistance, apply for housing, or apply for a job. The guest might never have had a California ID, which means they must first apply for a Birth Certificate. In order to get a Birth Certificate, you must have a copy of your ID. So if you don’t have a copy of your ID you can’t get a Birth Certificate and without the Birth Certificate you can’t get your ID. Once we are able to hopefully find a way to obtain the Birth Certificate, the guest  must go down to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). In order to do that they must find transportation to go to the DMV.

Many of our guests can’t afford roundtrip bus fare to the DMV, and recently the need has become so high that St. Anthony’s cannot pay every guest’s way. So sadly our guests, who often don’t have proper walking shoes and are often exhausted already must make the trek from the Tenderloin up to the Panhandle neighborhood–about a 2 ½ mile walk each way. Many people choose to try to hop on the bus and not pay and/or stretch how far a transfer will go.  As a result, it is not uncommon for the Social Work Center or the Dining Room to see guests coming back to us for tickets they have received riding Muni without paying when they were trying to get to the DMV, to San Francisco General Hospital, General Assistance, or one of the shelters. How is it that we think individuals are going to be able to pay bus fare when many of them are only getting $59 a month and many people on General Assistance do not qualify for a free muni pass? Even for many of our guests who are on some form of disability and get about $840 a month from the government,  they are paying $600-$700 a month  to live in an SRO hotel room that usually lacks both a private bathroom and a kitchen that do not have private bathrooms or kitchens.

So these are just a few challenges that lie before a guest just trying to get a California ID. Having a valid ID is a basic necessity in the city, one that many of us take for granted every day. It is vital to help guests break out of the cycle of poverty and live with respect.