Marcus Moore had already spent a few hours last week trying to file his 2019 income taxes on his cellphone when he learned about a new form he would need to use instead. The Bed-Stuy native didn’t earn enough working as a bike messenger last year to necessitate filing taxes, but he was doing so anyway in order to claim his direct payment from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus pandemic relief bill.
“I was just about done and I was hoping that it could be sent off this week,” said Moore. “Now it’s like, I’ve got to start all over? And I’m already hearing about people getting their checks.”
The 48-year-old artist and activist has experienced varying degrees of homelessness throughout his adult life. Most days, he leaves the hotel room in Manhattan where he’s temporarily staying, hops on his bike and makes DoorDash deliveries.
While he worries about being exposed to the virus, Moore said he likes the feeling that he’s helping others through the crisis.
“If I’m unable to move, I would want somebody to come by and drop me off a bag of goodies so I can be alright,” he said.
Like many of New York City's 62,000 homeless residents, Moore will have to clear a few hurdles in order to claim the money he’s eligible for under the CARES Act, and will have to do so at a time when nearly every task has been complicated by the pandemic. Not having filed taxes in recent years, not having a bank account, and lacking internet or computer access are all common among the homeless, and all factors that complicate the process of receiving a stimulus payment.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was one of 27 lawmakers to sign onto a letter asking the Department of the Treasury to make it easier for the homeless to get the money, in part by expanding automatic payments to people who receive benefits from SNAP, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or Supplemental Security Income. The government announced last week that SSI recipients will get their payments automatically.
Automating payments wherever possible may be one way to avoid a repeat of the 2008 stimulus rollout, when about 17 percent of those who were eligible — many with incomes so low they weren’t required to file taxes — never received the money because they never filed for it.
Any adult with a social security number who is not claimed as a dependent on someone else’s taxes is eligible under the current bill for the one-time Economic Impact Payment, which starts at $1,200 for individuals earning less than $75,000 and tapers off above that income level. Notably, the bill leaves out undocumented immigrants and their families.
The payments began arriving last week, and have already reached roughly 80 million Americans with bank accounts on file with the IRS from past tax returns. That group likely doesn’t include many homeless people, who typically don’t earn enough to file taxes. Non-filers like Moore will need to fill out a separate form released last week, and, if they don’t have a bank account, wait for a check in the mail. There are around 10 million Americans like Moore who aren’t in the tax system, according to a recent CNN report.
Receiving a check could be tricky for those without a stable address.
Nan Roman, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said access to banking is a “big concern” for the homeless. She’d like to see banks cash the stimulus checks, even for people who aren’t their customers, so the homeless won’t have to rely on check cashing stores, which often take an exorbitant cut.
“They’re federal government checks. It’s not like there’s a big risk,” Roman said.
Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase have said they will cash stimulus checks for non-customers without fees.
Once the check is cashed, homeless people without bank accounts will have to find a place to store the funds — a scenario that troubles Roman. “It worries me that people are going to have a lot of money,” Roman said. “That anyone would have a lot of money walking around in their pockets, especially if you’re staying in a shelter. I don’t know what the answer to that is.”
About a month ago, Manhattan-based advocacy group Picture the Homeless raised enough to book Moore the hotel room where he’s currently staying during the coronavirus outbreak. While he has WiFi there, not having a computer has been an obstacle to claiming his stimulus money. Under normal circumstances, he would use a computer at the Picture the Homeless office, but it’s now closed due to the pandemic, as are public libraries.
“The only thing I really have now at my disposal is my cellphone. It works pretty good, but some things don’t always work the best on a cellphone. So that’s where I’m at right now,” Moore said.
Marcus Moore performing at Robin Hood Foundation in 2019.
Shelly Nortz, a spokesperson for the New York City-based Coalition for the Homeless, said her organization is “busy addressing the most urgent issues of access to food, bathrooms, showers, phones, shelter and healthcare,” during the pandemic, and doesn’t yet have the bandwidth to focus on connecting clients with their stimulus checks.
The city’s shelters are likewise overwhelmed. Advocates have warned that the congregate settings are a fertile breeding ground for the coronavirus, prompting the city to transfer thousands from shelters to hotel rooms to reduce crowding.
According to Roman, making sure the homeless get their stimulus payments may also ease the burden on shelters, and therefore could be a public health strategy. “If they have a check, it’s possible they could find a place to stay,” she said. “It would help protect them potentially from the virus, and it would help reduce spread.”
Moore said that’s exactly how he’d like to use his $1,200 — to secure housing. His most recent residence was an abandoned house in Queens. He spent about four years fixing the place up until the owner kicked him out a few months ago.
“I was back riding the trains, which was a nightmare, going from being somewhat sheltered and having some kind of normalcy before going back to those same demons and ghosts that you thought you didn’t have to see no more,” Moore said.
He’s hoping the stimulus windfall, combined with his DoorDash earnings, are enough to help him find a place to live, or to clean up his credit to make that possible in the future.
“Maybe I can use some of my stimulus money to put down on a starter kit house or something like that,” he said. “I mean they did say that America is a place where you can dream. And I’m still dreaming, you know?”
