Don’t Forget to Vote!

May 2, 2014

Being able to secure a mailing address opens many opportunities for our guests. They are able to apply for state-issued IDs, which allow them access to a variety of benefits and services.  Having an address also means that our guests can vote. And more than four hundred have already registered, and are now eligible to vote in the upcoming primary. With more than one thousand seven hundred participants in the mail service, many more may be able to exercise this important right during the general election in the fall.

In order to ensure that as many of our guests as possible do get this opportunity to vote, the Mail Service team has added voter registration to the initial sign-up process. In addition BSM is partnering with Project HOME to help support volunteers in the Vote for Homes initiative. Volunteers will be spending Election Day making sure that everyone wishing to exercise this important franchise is able to get to their polling places to cast their ballots.

For many of our guests, being able to vote again (or for the first time) is another important milestone on their way to re-engaging with civil society. Each of these connections –whether it is corresponding with family and friends, or accessing programs that lead to more a more stable life, or being part of mainstream society by voting – offer our guests a way of reimagining a future that is more hopeful, and more optimistic than they could picture before they found their way through the red doors on Broad Street.