> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # You don’t need a home to get mail - URL: https://www.smdp.com/you-dont-need-a-home-to-get-mail-2/ - Published: 2001-11-22T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-22T22:28:12.000Z - Author: Andrew Fixmer - Tags: Community, Ocean Park, #archive-import, Homeless *Post office not fond of center extending its address* For the homeless, you would think it would be impossible for them to conduct any personal business like banking, receiving money or communicating with friends and family. But there’s a place in Santa Monica that goes through the back door of a system that most of us take for granted. The Ocean Park Community Center provides the homeless a “permanent address” for mail and phone messages. When Homer Simpson (yes, that’s his real name) said he lost his job at a nuclear power plant in Dallas, he packed his bags and headed west to find work as a welder in one of California’s many power plants. There are few ways for his family in Texas to reach him while he is searching for work and a permanent place to live. But like hundreds of other homeless people in Santa Monica, Simpson learned he can have his mail sent to the community center. “When I run out of money, this is where mom sends all my checks,” said Simpson, with a huge grin stretched across his face. “This is how my family finds me.” The staff at the community center have set up an extensive mail and message center, filing up to 500 parcels a day and hundreds more in telephone messages. In the morning, the center’s newly renovated waiting room fills with people signing up in long lines to check their messages and pick up their mail. Barbara Mork, the center’s director, said the service is partly how the center helps the homeless find work. “When our clients go to job interviews, they need a way for the employer to find them,” said Mork. “This way they can actively look for work.” Many homeless cannot rent post office boxes or private mail boxes, not due to high rents, but because they must have two forms of identification, and a permanent residence. The federal government also requires a permanent address and a phone number on many assisted living forms, which would disqualify many homeless from receiving their government checks if the center didn’t extend its address to them. “As their post office boxes came up for renewal, our clients began losing them because they couldn’t provide the proper ID or a permanent address,” said Mork. “So now we offer them to send their letters here.” But to have mail sent to the shelter, many homeless must first go down to the post office and fill out a form allowing the OPCC to accept their mail. “Otherwise, we won’t deliver it there,” said Shelly, the box clerk at the main Santa Monica Post Office. “We have to have a way to find these individuals if they receive anything illegal.” The same regulations are required at private mail boxes at packaging and shipping companies. “You have to have a permanent address to rent one of our boxes,” said a clerk at the Mail Boxes, Etc. store on Lincoln Boulevard, who would not giver her name. “For that reason, I think it would be impossible for anyone that’s homeless to get their mail here.” Shelly said strict postal regulations are needed because bombs and anthrax are sent through the mail. “We don’t know who they are or what kind of packages they are receiving if we don’t have proof of identity,” he said. “With the way things are today, you never know, you have to take precautions. We have to be real careful these days.” Mork said the post office has complained about the center extending its address to the city’s homeless, but has not pursued any actions to close down the operation. “For now they can have their mail sent here, but I hope it doesn’t grow too much more,” she said. “We have people that want to sign up to get their mail here everyday, but we can’t continue to do it for much longer without having to hire another staff member just to handle mail.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/112201-03_01.jpg) to the Daily Press Ocean Park Community Center receptionist Candee Lord gives Homer Simpson mail that has been collecting at the center for three weeks. (Photo: Andrew H. Fixmer/Special) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2001.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/112201.pdf?ref=smdp.com)