For John Irvine II, voting is “the most important thing we have.” Standing outside St. Anthony’s dining room one recent morning with a cart full of his belongings, he expanded on that thought: “Without it, we can’t change the government or select that role model or a voice for ourselves to go speak to the world.”
But voting may become harder for Irvine and other people experiencing homelessness in coming elections if California’s Proposition 39, a new voter ID law, passes. In recent years, there have been increased sweeps of homeless encampments locally. The need to be on the move and loss of property during sweeps have made it even harder for people experiencing homelessness to hold onto the records that Proposition 39 would require to cast a ballot. If the measure passes, it will add another hurdle in a long line of barriers to civic engagement that unhoused people already face, despite their lives being heavily influenced by governmental policy decisions.
“People who are experiencing homelessness are really impacted by a lot of the laws and decisions that are made by local government, state government, federal government, and the ballot measures,” said Eleana Binder, policy director at Glide. “But they often have less access than your average person who’s trying to vote because of the barriers that they face in just daily living.”
The state measure would require voters to show ID when voting in person or to write the last four digits of their government-issued ID or social security number on the back of their ballot envelope. It would also require elections officials make “best efforts” to verify that voters are U.S. citizens and that counties report the percentage of registered voters whose citizenship status has been verified.
“There’s no way, shape or form that you can say that stricter ID laws do not make it more challenging” to vote, said Marcy Thompson, vice president of programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “It’s going to essentially screen out our most vulnerable neighbors.”
Proposition 39 is supported by the California Republican Party, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Proponents have raised nearly $36.6 million in campaign contributions through Oct. 22, about $3 million more than the measure’s opposition groups. Opponents include the Northern and Southern California branches of the ACLU, the California Democratic Party, several unions and Latinx organizations, in addition to Glide, a San Francisco-based church and social services organization.
“Losing your home should not mean losing your vote,” Thompson said.
The San Francisco Department of Elections did not respond to questions about the proposition, while a representative from the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said the agency could not comment on current ballot measures.
Worsening existing barriers
Many unhoused people already face significant barriers to exercising their right to vote, which experts, service providers and advocates said would worsen if Proposition 39 were to pass.
People experiencing homelessness are eligible to vote and, in California, can legally use cross streets near where they stay to register or get a mail-in ballot sent to an address of their choosing. But enforcement of anti-camping laws make it much harder for unhoused people to hold onto necessary documentation, numerous sources said.
“In our experience, unhoused community members are constantly needing to replace identification,” Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, wrote in an email. “They have no place to store belongings typically as they sleep. They are vulnerable to theft. The city frequently destroys their property in sweeps. Having an identification requirement would be a serious barrier for them.”
Julia Gomez, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the measure compounds existing burdens for people experiencing homelessness: “Without getting rid of things like encampment sweeps that make people have to move all the time and therefore need to update the registration all the time, I think we’re still failing our unhoused communities.”
Additionally, because people experiencing homelessness don’t always have reliable access to a mailing address, phone or email, if Proposition 39 passes, “it’s going to be difficult for elections officials to get in touch with unhoused people in particular to try to get them to cure their issue,” she said. “It’s just going to be incredibly chaotic.”
Exacerbating racial inequity and election denialism
Over the last few years, California policymakers have been trying to make it easier for eligible voters to participate in elections. Opponents of Proposition 39 note that the state already has a rigorous verification process when people register to vote and cast ballots. They say the measure represents a continuation of historical voter suppression efforts to exclude people of color and is part of a more recent wave to undermine faith in elections.
“There’s no problem that they’re actually solving here,” Scott Graves, budget director of the California Budget & Policy Center, a nonpartisan research and analysis nonprofit, said when discussing the measure’s proponents. “They’re just saying, ‘Hey, let’s layer on more red tape that we don’t need.’ ”
For voters of color and other historically marginalized communities, the measure can feel like history repeating itself.
Hashani Shelton, who lives in a single-room-occupancy unit in San Francisco, strongly disagrees with Proposition 39. “People have enough hassle, enough time trying to keep up with this stuff and getting to the voting polls as it is. I think that’s just a way to get the minority vote out of the picture.”
Research shows that people of color, as well as those with lower incomes or living with disabilities, are all overrepresented among people experiencing homelessness, and are less likely to have the documents sought by proponents of voter ID measures.
A 2022 study of voters in Texas published in the Journal of Politics found that registrants voting without ID were disproportionately Black and Latinx, and that registrants without identification were less likely to vote when an ID mandate was in place.
Thompson described voting as a racial justice issue and said that helping clients exercise their right to vote makes sure that injustice isn’t compounded again by being unhoused.
Another study from the University of Maryland found that 21% of people making less than $30,000 a year either did not have any form of ID or did not have one with their current name and address. For people who make more than $100,000, only 9% don’t have an ID with their current name and address. For people at all income levels who self-identified as having a disability, 20% said they had no ID.
Several Proposition 39 opponents linked the measure to election fraud claims from President Donald Trump.
“It’s part of a broader effort to create chaos and to question the integrity of election results,” Gomez said. Even if Proposition 39 were to pass, she said it’s not like tomorrow Trump and Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, who is spearheading the measure, “would say, ‘All right, there’s no voter fraud in California anymore.’ It would just open the door for more restrictions.”
An analysis from the state’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office found that Proposition 39 could cost state and local governments tens of millions of dollars to low hundreds of millions of dollars because it would require the state to provide free voter identification cards to voters who requested one.
“Resources are finite, and if we’re going to add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state budget to help implement Prop 39 if it passes, then the question always has to be, ‘Well, where is that money going to come from?’ ” said Graves, from the California Budget & Policy Center. “And the answer is, it’s probably going to come from other vital services like education or healthcare or support for seniors and people with disabilities.”
Making voting more accessible
Thompson said that even if Proposition 39 doesn’t pass, municipalities can do more to make sure people experiencing homelessness can exercise their right to vote. For example, they can set up systems for asking unhoused people if they are registered to vote when they are being screened for services, invite candidates to speak at drop-in centers or shelters, and set up transportation to the polls, she said.
San Francisco’s Department of Elections sends representatives to Glide and other nonprofits that serve people experiencing homelessness to help register voters.
Glide has served as a polling place in years past and will once again this November. Binder, the organization’s policy director, hopes it will make people feel safer and more comfortable voting in a familiar place.
If you’re experiencing homelessness and want to vote, check out our unhoused voter guide or zine. For an overview of local ballot measures, see our November 2026 election guide.
