Hacker News Reader

Comment by icantdrive55 | Hacker News Reader

I always felt P.O. boxes should be free for those that are homeless. If said box goes unused it is put back into general use.

Verification could be supplied by the county.

View on HN

> I always felt P.O. boxes should be free for those that are homeless. If said box goes unused it is put back into general use.

They (basically) already are. USPS provides free mailing service for people who don't have a fixed address, and you can use that as your street address (unlike PO boxes, which are invalid for use in circumstances that require a street address). They'll hold onto any mail addressed to you for 30 days.

Also, many USPS locations allow you to use the address of the building and to append the P.O. Box similar to an apartment number.

> unlike PO boxes, which are invalid for use in circumstances that require a street address

If you, heaven forbid, ever become homeless:

If anybody ever insists that you provide a 'real address', lie. List your PO address as "123 Street Name, Apt #PONUMBER".

Nobody will ever be assed enough to check that it's not a real apartment. Nobody.

I believe you're referring to general delivery, known in the rest of the world as poste restante. (Fixed addresses are a fairly modern invention; poste restante used to be the norm before individually delivered mail became the norm.)

What's really rude is you can't get a USPS PO BOX without a permanent address. I got the run around with a USPS employee about why I couldn't provide that information. I told them I was essentially transient (coming back from a long trip, no family), and they told me, "tough".

There are private PO boxes you can rent out, instead.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com