Even ID documents take a village effort

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This article was published 04/12/2023 (643 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Al Wiebe fell into homelessness, the last thing on his mind was finding a safe spot to keep his birth certificate.

“No. 1, especially people who are not in shelter, it’s really difficult to keep things. I know (in encampments) people get things stolen off them all the time, but the problem is, as a person who is not staying in a shelter, it’s really hard to hang onto anything,” said Wiebe, a lived experience advocate whose story of overcoming homelessness has been well documented.

Wiebe earned a six-figure income in advertising but unexpectedly lost his job, sending him into depression and, eventually, to living in his car for 14 months and without a home for more than two years.

“It’s always difficult (to store important stuff) no matter where,” he said. “You either don’t have it or you’re always thinking that somebody’s gonna steal your stuff, it’s always one or the other.”

It wasn’t until Wiebe tried to apply for welfare that he scrambled to find some form of ID, which was long gone by that point.

Wiebe’s struggle to find a secure place to bank his important documents is all too common for many of the 1,256 people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg (according to 2022 stats by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness). There’s also no telling how the segment of hidden homeless (couch surfers) are organizing crucial pieces of paper.

The need had been obvious to SEED Winnipeg Inc., a local non-profit, and why it launched a pilot run for an ID storage program in September.

The project allows low-income individuals and those experiencing homelessness to apply for a free, secure space to store important documents and identification like mail, birth certificates, photo ID cards and Manitoba health cards.

The project, which is covered under federal funding, is a part of SEED ’s Access to Benefits program, which helps folks with tax filing, setting up bank accounts and accessing benefits.

“Having helped people for many years to obtain ID… and SEED truly recognizes the importance of ID and that without it, like, it’s just critical to financial inclusion. There are increasingly over time more and more things that you’re unable to do without ID and the birth certificate is the foundational piece of ID for people born in Canada,” said Jenn Bogoch, manager of SEED’s Access to Benefits program.

“So we’re committed to helping people obtain ID, an increasing number of our resources go to this project because we see the importance and because we know that the need continues to grow.”

More than 30 people have signed up for the program so far, but Bogoch said SEED’s storage is already nearing capacity. It will employ a distributed model of storage, which will require it to find other willing and able organizations to jump on board with the project to provide the resources to those in need.

“We struggle in our ID work to meet the demand, so we are continuously turning people away or asking people to call back next week. So one way we’ve tried to grow the access to ID is to partner with community organizations and this project is allowing us to support eight community organizations, seven in Winnipeg and Northern Health Authority in northern Manitoba,” she said.

“Winnipeg is kind of geographically spread out so one hub of ID storage didn’t seem workable. We think SEED can play a small piece in storing ID for some participants, but that we’re not an accessible or familiar location for everybody.”

Among the criteria is the organization must have reliable hours of operation, credibility within its community and in a location with administrative processes already in place.

Contracts are in the works with two organizations, which are expected to be completed and ready to open storage units by Christmas.

“The way we’re envisioning this is that none of the organizations have the capacity to take on this role for everybody — that would put more traffic than any one organization can manage — and that this is best done in community organizations for the people that they’re already working with primarily,” Bogoch said. “Each organization may have criteria for whose ID they can store, it may be that you need to be connected to the organization in some other way or it may be like SEED where your first step is to book an appointment, and unfortunately those appointments are limited.

“So, it’s going to be sort of looking at community partners who are well-suited to do this, maybe not for the whole city but for a group that they are connected to, whether that’s geographically or through connections through other programs.”

ID storage for the homeless is not new in the country, or in Winnipeg for that matter. Citizens Bridge, which operates under the North End Community Renewal Corporation, launched in 2012 and has provided a similar service in the area.

As a part of its research for an I.D storage project that began in July, SEED spoke with Citizens Bridge and conducted four in-depth interviews with organizations already offering services in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and Phoenix, Ariz., to find out the right approach.

Representatives in the Manitoba Vital Statistics Agency, justice systems and Service Canada have also helped SEED uncover systemic issues and solutions that will allow it to employ a successful project.

“We also think going forward that there are really promising opportunities to look at digital ID storage, to look at information sharing between government departments,” Bogoch said. “But those are bigger, longer-term projects.”

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Wiebe said he expects the program will be well-received by the community.

“The problem is your mind isn’t always there, and you’re always in a state of confusion because of the trauma and everything that’s going on and your concentration is not ever where it’s supposed to be. No. 1, you’re starving, you don’t have enough food, and just the stress of surviving one day after another is hard,” he said.

“… It’s actually a really, really solid idea to have an ID bank for sure.”

The pilot run — and federal funding for the project — will end at the end of March, but Bogoch said SEED has every intention of continuing to provide the service.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Joshua Frey-Sam
Reporter

Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.

Every piece of reporting Josh produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.