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Comment by sillystuff | Hacker News Reader

If you do not have a physical address (e.g., live on a boat / in an RV), our local DMV will tell you to use the street address of a local homeless shelter.

This probably won't get you past the requirement of utility bills in your name at that address to get a "Real ID" that allows domestic flights without a passport, though.

Same thing for getting a PO box, you need a physical address first. The post office will tell you the same thing, to use the address of a homeless shelter.

The folks writing these laws do not live in vans, and do not care, nor even think about the impact of their actions on folks with alternative living arrangements / folks poorer than they are.

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What if you're living in a van because #vanlife and you want to drive around the country nomadically for a couple years and not because you are actually financially qualified to be homeless?

Like, what if you are a millionaire living in a fancy RV driving around national parks for a couple years?

Then you get a mail forwarding service, which gives you a proper "permanent" mailing address. DDG for "rv mail forwarding" for many options.

Which doesn't fulfill the utility bill requirement.

Just get the utilities bills sent to your mailbox.

At the very least you can definitely get your bank statements sent there ...

The utility bills for the utilities you don't have? The whole point is you don't have a fixed address that requires utilities.

I’ve used my cell phone bill as my utility bill no problem.

Then you rent a $500/mo bedroom somewhere, sleep in it once so it's not fraud to call it your residence, and have the roommates put the utilities in your name.

Now you have a residence address and utility bills in your name to your residence address, and you can get a driver's license there, just like a real boy.

Fair, but do people actually do this?

Is there a $100/mo closet I can rent for that purpose or does it have to be $500/mo bedroom? What's the smallest one can go?

People actually do this.

Do you really think wealthy people (who are naturally at risk of kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, threats against family, etc) have their driver's license address pointing to the place where their children sleep at night?

The DMV gives those records in bulk to third parties. It's as good as public. Additionally, every dumbfuck services vendor from a gym to a daycare to a doctor's office will demand to photocopy your ID card to provide service, and you can be damn well sure that they aren't doing a good job protecting that information. They're storing it on their malware-ridden front desk Windows computer along with everyone else's.

As far as $100/mo vs $500/mo: what's the difference? It's all under $10k/year. Who cares?

$400/mo invested in some shitcoins and NFTs could easily make you more than $10k/year.

Former van-denizen here. I always used friends' addresses (with their permission, for a limited amount of time) when I needed to get important docs or plates. Usually it's not too hard to find someone to let you receive some mail at their house. Utility bills were always a problem for me, but there are usually ways around. Proof of filing a tax return in-state is enough in most cases, even if you're not "at" that address anymore.

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