I met Jackson last Tuesday in front
of Carl’s Jr. on Convoy Street. I had just left my car to be repaired so I had
the day to hang out. I gave Jackson, holding a worn cardboard sign asking for
help, a $20 bill after we’d talked for a while.
“What’s your story?” I asked him,
something I often do when I meet the homeless.
He had been in jail for two months
for carrying a nunchuck, he said, something the police said was an illegal
weapon. “When I got out, two women befriended me about a week later. All smiles,
they were, and told me I could trust them. The next morning all my i.d. was
gone.”
He’d been trying to get his Social
Security payments, but didn’t have any identification. He did, however, have
written down his SS and Texas driver’s license numbers. I thought maybe
I could help this guy, so I invited him into Carls for something to
eat and some snacks for the rest of the day.
His eventual story was so believable
and fraught with the kind of details that bothered me so much (sleeping under
store fronts, spending the day begging, a family that disowned him) that I
asked him how I could help even more. There were things I could do. At least
give him some more money for some thrift store clothes, and buy some groceries
for a couple of days.
Knowing the weather was going to get
nasty, I said I’d pay for him to stay at a motel for a couple of days. He had
enough information that I could pay for a Texas birth certificate to be mailed
to me, and I would help him get some i.d.
After a cab ride to the library on
Aero drive and use of a computer I could enter what info I could and see what
would happen. This is when I stepped into a legal morass that has kept me awake
in the middle of the night.
We found the Texas web site and
entered all the information, including birthdate, SS and DL numbers, and
parents first, middle and last names. I was so relieved that I could help him
in this way. But then we discovered how Texas and other states have effectively
blocked the disenfranchised with this kind of mind-boggling hurdle: Jackson
needed an “audit number” next to his DL photo to verify his identity.
Jackson didn’t have such a number, as
it wasn’t something he knew from his original license. But to get his birth
certificate for proof of identity we needed to be able to prove his identity,
despite all the pertinent details.
I was flummoxed. There’s got to be a
way to help him around this dead end. Maybe I could help him get his SS, which
had been denied him. The next morning I took him to the Aero Drive SS office
with all the information he had, details I expected the clerk there would
honor. Nope. In fact, his record showed that, without proper i.d. there was a
fraud alert that blocked his access to $920 a month in disability
payments he had been owed since early last year.
Jackson left the office in an
understandable rage, and I followed him to the car under such a cloud of
futility that I told him there must be a way around this. I took him back to
his motel, at least happy he was out of the rain last Thursday, stopping
at a market for food that would last a couple of days, at least until I’d done
more research.
We needed to somehow get a copy of
his birth certificate. Could he contact his mom in Houston? No, he couldn’t
reach her after she moved. His brother and sister refuse to take his calls.
Yes, I provided Jackson with all the
info on homeless shelters, food pantries, and other services, which he said
hadn’t been as much help as he’d hoped. Whether this was true, I just had to
take his word for it.
My friends have told me I’ve done
more for a homeless person than they would have ever done. True, but I couldn’t
get him his birth certificate.
I had paid for the motel through
Monday night, glad that I could keep Jackson dry for a couple more days.
Saturday I called him and explained that I’d done everything I could to help
him.
“What am I going to do now?” he
asked. “Maybe money for the bus to Los Angeles. I’ll have better luck up
there.”
But how would that be any better than
San Diego?
“At least I wouldn’t be here any
more,” he said. I explained again that I’d done all I could.
“Thanks for helping me to Tuesday
morning. I’ll check out when I’m supposed to, and hang out in Kearny Mesa.”
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“So am I,” and he ended the call.
