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Carl Steiner walked to the window of a small gray building near downtown Phoenix and gave a worker his name. He stepped away with a box and a cellphone bill.
The box is what Steiner had come for: It contained black and red Reebok sneakers to use in his new warehouse job.
Steiner doesn’t have a permanent address. His letters and packages are delivered to a mail room for homeless people in the building at the Keys to Change campus, a collaborative of 15 nonprofit organizations that serve those like him.
He and thousands of others have received mail here for years. They use the address for job applications, for medication, to receive benefits like food stamp cards and even to vote. And for 20 years, the U.S. Postal Service provided at least 20% of the mail room’s budget.
But last month, the postal service ended its support of $24,000 a year because a nearby post office is “able to fully serve the community,” a spokesperson said in a statement to ProPublica.
Unlike a standard post office, Keys to Change allows people to receive mail without a government ID, a common problem for some who are homeless.
This year, Keys to Change will spend about $117,000 to help 7,000 people get their mail. Although the cost is minimal relative to the nonprofit’s budget, it’s a “crucial part” of helping people exit homelessness, said Amy Schwabenlender, the organization’s CEO.
“It really is a priceless thing that we can offer to our clients,” Schwabenlender said.
The loss of support from the Postal Service comes at a time of uncertainty for one of Arizona’s largest nonprofit homeless services providers and similar organizations nationwide. Keys to Change says it will seek donations to keep the mail room open.
But there will be less money for such services as President Donald Trump and his administration take a very different approach to homelessness than his predecessors.
Trump is calling for large reductions to assistance grants, as well as their restructuring. More than half of Keys to Change’s funding comes from government agreements, Schwabenlender said.
The president has also issued an executive order urging cities to remove people who live outdoors by enforcing camping bans and institutionalizing those experiencing mental health or substance use disorders. The order also calls for ending support for programs that prioritize housing and services.
With funding shifting to support a more punitive approach to homelessness, even small programs like the mail room could be strained. The loss of the Postal Service’s assistance is not related to these budget cuts, but for providers it leaves one more gap to fill. Some, like Keys to Change, said they’ll be forced to do more with less federal support as demand for assistance is increasing.