Welfare pays less than SSI does. Here's the insane thing: To get SSI (and frankly, i think perhaps also to get welfare, or so I've heard), you need to have an address. So if you're homeless you're actually more SOL in terms of getting help from the government than if you have a home and are less needy.
The system's a wee bit fucked, no?
Some shelters and churches will let the homeless use them as a mailing address. There's also PO boxes.
*nod* Assuming there's a free bed in the shelter. They're prety damn booked, at least around my neck of the woods.
PO boxes cost money that the homeless (presumably) don't have.
Here a PO box does not count as an address, but, homeless people who know the way, will be able to obtain a postal address, often via the Salvation Army or a homeless shelter. And with that address, they can apply for wellfare and support. Wellfare will be less than it would be for someone with a home, because a homeless person doesn't have the costs for rent, heating and such.
In the Netherlands it's the homeless people that are so far from society that they are not found or don't want to be found by the Salvation Army, who will have no income.
