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Homeless Ohioans could skip ID and birth record fees
The bill would also let shelters and nonprofit case managers keep secure copies of key papers with consent, so people are less likely to lose them again.
Ohio lawmakers are advancing a proposal that would make it easier for people experiencing homelessness to replace the documents they need to function in daily life. The bill would waive fees for identification cards and vital statistics records for people without stable housing. It is aimed at a problem that can seem small from the outside, but can quickly become a major obstacle for someone trying to rebuild their life.
A missing ID or birth record can slow down the process of applying for housing, signing up for services, or taking care of other paperwork that depends on proof of identity. When someone is living out of a backpack, a car, or a shelter bed, even one lost document can be hard to replace and harder to keep safe the second time around. The proposal tries to meet that reality with a simpler rule: if a person is experiencing homelessness, the state would not charge the usual fee to replace certain records.
Keeping papers safer once they are found
The bill would also allow homeless shelters and nonprofit agencies that provide case-management services to hold copies of some key documents, but only with the person’s consent. That includes a physical or digital copy of a Social Security card, a certification of birth, or a certified copy of a birth record. The idea is not to take control away from the person who owns the documents. It is to give them a safer place to store the information so it is not lost again.
The storage rules are more careful than a simple handoff. The bill says the copy would need to be protected with a physical or virtual lock, and only appropriate staff could access it. That matters because many people without stable housing do not have a locked drawer, a filing cabinet, or a permanent address where important papers can sit untouched. If those papers are stored by a shelter or case manager, the person would still be able to get to them in a timely manner when needed.
The proposal also gives the individual control over what happens next. A person whose document is stored under the bill would be allowed to request that it be destroyed, deleted, or returned. That kind of access and control is important for a measure like this, because the point is to make records more usable, not harder to reach.
A wider set of fee waivers
The fee relief in the bill is not limited to state ID cards. It also reaches other records that often sit at the center of a longer paper trail. Among the documents covered are certified records related to marriage and to name changes, divorces, annulments, or dissolutions of marriage. In one place, the proposal says a probate judge would have to waive all fees for a certified abstract of marriage when the request comes from an individual experiencing homelessness and the person has not already received that waiver in the preceding year.
The same pattern appears elsewhere in the bill. A clerk of the court of common pleas would have to waive all fees for a certified record of a name change or a certificate of divorce, annulment, or dissolution of marriage for an individual who is experiencing homelessness and has not received the waiver in the preceding year. The point is to remove cost from the path to legal documentation, especially when a person may need more than one record to complete the next step.
The proposal also sets a matching annual report requirement. Beginning one year after the section takes effect, local commissioners of health or local registrars of vital statistics who grant these waivers would have to send the director of health a report by the end of January each year. The report would show how many people received waivers in the previous year, broken down by type of document. The director of health would then compile that information and publish an annual report on the department’s website. That gives state leaders and the public a clearer view of how often the relief is being used.
The voting changes are part of the same bill
The measure is broader than homelessness paperwork. It would also change absentee voting in Ohio. One part of the bill creates a secure online portal for absentee ballot applications, with a window for submitting applications that begins earlier in the election cycle and closes seven days before the election. Another part sets out rules for how some absentee voters would identify themselves and return their ballots.