SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – They may look like regular black filing cabinets in an office building in Kearny Mesa.

Instead, the unassuming cabinets are the brainchild of a collaboration between the nonprofit organization Think Dignity and the regional Task Force on Homelessness.

The program is called “ID Bank” and aims to help homeless people obtain their documents from A to Z and store them free of charge.

“If someone needs a passport or any other form of identification – a Social Security card, a driver’s license, a birth certificate from anywhere in the United States – we can get it for them at no cost,” said Kaetlyn Loeffler Malatesta, program coordinator at Think Dignity.

People can then choose whether they want their documents returned or stored at ID Bank – either in the cabinets or in a secure digital program.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said John Brady, managing director of Lived Experience Advisors.

Brady was formerly homeless and advocates for the homeless in San Diego County.

“The constant clutter means that documents are constantly being lost – especially important documents that are difficult to reproduce – and we have to recreate them,” Brady said.

It is a feeling of security that would have meant everything to him and that will also mean everything to others in his old situation.

“Imagine packing up your house every day and loading it into a moving truck. At the end of the day, you can’t unpack everything, but you have to find that one thing. And it’s possible that during the day, someone broke into the truck,” Brady said. “And then you’ve lost important documents, prescriptions and, you know, identification that you need to get out of homelessness.

Think Dignity said ID Bank will reach out to more people for help in the coming weeks through satellite offices across the country.

We will start with downtown San Diego, Kearny Mesa and National City.

For more information about ID Bank or to schedule an appointment, please email [email protected].