Homeless ID Project

In a broad sense, we seek to end homelessness. Specifically, our mission is to empower homeless individuals and families to end their homelessness and rebuild their lives by providing the critical first step of identification replacement services. We seek to provide this service where needed, beginning in Phoenix and Maricopa County but ultimately across the state of Arizona and beyond.

We are located on the Human Services Campus in downtown Phoenix, AZ, home to 16 providers of service to the homeless. In 2022 we saw 79 individuals per day to assure they have the documents they need to access services. Total Document count for the year was 12,143. We also provide secure storage for documents so that those living on the street do not have those documents lost or stolen. We currently have eleven outreach programs across Maricopa and Pima Counties and work with the clients of 50 partner agencies to provide documents needed to take advantage of opportunities for housing and employment. We will expand into Northern AZ during 2023. In addition to providing direct service, we advocate for our mission. In 2018 we proposed HB2575 which provides a fee waiver for state IDs for homeless military veterans. This is now law. In 2021 we proposed a bill allowing kids aged 16 and 17 in foster care or homeless to get their own vital documents (State ID and Birth Certificate) without parent or guardian signature, thus assuring that these young people will have access to housing, employment and basic human services as they seek their way in the world. In the current legislative session, we proposed a bill, which provides a fee waiver for a new or replacement State ID for all individuals experiencing homelessness in Arizona. HB 2222 is working its way through the State House of Representatives.

We currently employ six individuals and 7 to 10 volunteers. We have a strong and focused Board of Directors and 35 years of experience, giving us the knowledge needed to walk clients through the often-difficult process of obtaining State IDs, birth certificates and other supporting documents. We have experience in this process with all 50 states and territories.
We are exploring a national solution for the problems caused by lack of identifying documents and have discovered that, while this is a 50-state problem, there are no more than a handful of agencies doing this work. Thus, we created an organization we call The National Conversation About IDs. (nationalconversation.org). There are currently more than 500 members in all 50 states.

In the past six years, as our mission has been solidified and our efforts redoubled, we are providing a record number of documents each month with increasing efficiency. For example, in the period of 2016-2019 we provided an average of 7,500 documents per year at an average cost of $50 per document (including documents and all related expenses). Following a record number of 8,276 documents in 2021, the document count jumped to 12,143 - with an average fully loaded cost of less than $40 per document.
In addition to two primary locations, we run 12 outreach/shared location programs. We expect to be operational in six additional cities across Arizona by mid-2023.