this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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It requires that you provide a lot of documentation to get something that qualifies as a RealID. Multiple documents showing your full name, birth date, SSN, and proof of address. And if you can't provide that paperwork, no ID for you, get fucked. Maybe that doesn't seem like much, you just need the RealID to fly on planes, right? But if you can't get an ID you can't get hired. You can't drive. You can't rent a place. You can't vote in a lot of places.
And then you get the ugly Catch 22 where you can't get a RealID because you're homeless and jobless, and you can't get a home or job because you don't have any ID.
My dad helped an old friend he knew who he found out hard been homeless for a while. And realized how you can be unpersoned. The old guy had no living family, no supporting documents to prove who he was and as such couldn't get an ID. Which meant he couldn't get a bank account, or a job that wasn't cash under the table.