While many students focused their campaign efforts on canvassing and phone banking in battleground states, a group of Georgetown law students worked to increase voter registration by targeting an unlikely group – the homeless population in Washington, D.C.

From Sept. 21 to 27, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty sponsored the National Homeless and Low-Income Voter Registration Week. Outreach, which is comprised of 25 Georgetown law students, took part in the national event and helped register more than 350 homeless people to vote. The group then went a step further by launching its own get-out-the-vote effort, personally walking or driving homeless individuals to various polling locations, according to Luis Rodriguez (LAW ’10), the initiative’s organizer.

“It was very easy to encourage people to register,” Rodriguez said. “We just had to make it easy for them to do so.”

Rodriguez, an intern at NLCHP, first thought of holding the two-part registration drive while working on a voter rights manual. He said that many homeless individuals are unaware of their voting rights. Many states, as well as the District of Columbia, have laws that allow people to register without a permanent residence.

Bill O’Field, former spokesman for the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics, stated that non-traditional addresses, including street corners or parks, will be accepted by the Board of Elections for those who do not have a fixed address.

“I think there’s a myth that homeless individuals aren’t engaged in our political process,” Rodriguez said. “[The homeless] don’t [register] because they don’t think they can.”

One obstacle that homeless people face, he said, is the lack of a mailing address where the voter registration card can be sent. Some of the ways that the group was able to get around this complication was to use a homeless shelter’s address, when permitted. Rodriguez also suggested using the mailing address of a relative as an alternative.

“We had to be very creative in finding out where it would be mailed,” he said.

Informing the homeless about voter registration and deadlines, as well as the necessity of a valid form of photo identification are just a few of the obstacles keeping the homeless from the polls, Rodriguez said.

In addition to getting individuals to the polls, Rodriguez said the group also provided and service centers, like Miriam’s Kitchen, and shelters, like Community for Creative Non-Violence, with information about Election Day, ensuring that homeless voters would know where, when and how to vote on Nov. 4.

iriam’s Kitchen serves breakfast during the weekdays as well as provides social services such as counseling, health services, and assistance finding housing and employment. The Community for Creative Non-Violence also offers counseling, and serves as a shelter, offering 1,350 beds to those in need in D.C.

“Voting is an empowering thing,” Kristin Shaw (NHS ’10) said, an intern with the National Coalition for the Homeless, which helped with the project. “When you’re down on your luck, it can be something to give you a little bit of confidence.”

Shaw said that she encountered a large number of first-time voters, many of whom were unaware of how the voting process worked, as well as people who preferred paper ballots because of their inexperience with computers.

“I think so many people registered because it just seemed like things could actually change,” she said.

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