“General Delivery” Is Almost As Good As a Mailbox
In today’s world, it’s hard to do anything without a legal permanent address, a fact you may never realize if you happen to never be homeless. Without it, you’ll quickly find that everything from applying for a job to ordering something online is extremely difficult.
Whether you’re facing hardships, living a nomadic lifestyle, or just moving out for a while, there’s an old-school trick you can use to get around many of these restrictions. It’s called shared delivery and anyone can use it to get their mail, whether they’re homeless, on the go, or just traveling.
How Shared Shipping Works
Standard Delivery is a service provided by the US Postal Service that allows people to send mail to you through the post office, where it will be stored for up to 30 days, depending on the type of mail. All the sender has to do is address the mail to you, using “general delivery” as the address. For example, if you are homeless and need an address to receive support checks and important documents in New York, you can mail them to the main post office at the following address:
your name
General delivery
New York, NY 10001
As a recipient, you will have 10 days to pick up your regular mail at the general delivery window at 390 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan (30 days for checks). After that, the mail will return the letter to the sender.
This used to be the main way mail was received – it was sent to the local post office and people periodically dropped in to pick it up. As landline addresses became more common and systematized, and personal delivery routes were established, the service obviously got much less use, but it’s still in place and you can use it if you need to.
The shared delivery service has some potential limitations:
- Typically, it’s only available at one post office in an area, so you’ll need to make a few calls to find out where your mail will actually go if someone is using it.
- The local postmaster has a great deal of discretion; if you receive too much mail, they may reject it or return all of it to the sender if they don’t have the local capacity to store it. They may also simply decide to stop offering the service to you.
- You still need to show legal ID to receive mail.
Even with these limitations, shared shipping can solve a ton of problems, even if you’re not homeless.
Problem with mailboxes
Shared shipping is mostly useful for people who don’t have a home address or who travel and are away from their address for a long period of time. For example, in New York , thousands of homeless people receive mail this way every day .
Another application of shared delivery that many find useful is bypassing mailbox restrictions (POB). Having a mailbox as an alternative address is a good way to keep your home address private – you get daily mail delivery and private access to a secure mailbox. The main problem with using POB is that most delivery services, including Fed Ex and UPS, do not deliver packages to it.
Shared shipping is a potential way to deliver your packages without using your home address. It’s important to note that this is not guaranteed: while most online retailers (like Amazon) and shipping companies accept a generic shipping address on their websites, there can be issues when they show up in the mail with your packages. As mentioned above, the local postmaster may simply decide that there is not enough space to store your items and refuse delivery. And if your online store accepts an address, but UPS does not, for example, you may have big problems tracking your package.
However, if you’re in between addresses or can’t use your home address for some reason, regular shipping offers a potential solution for your packages. Pro Tip: If you plan on relying on shared shipping, it’s a good idea to contact your local postmaster first to speak directly with them about it. This can iron out any misunderstandings and make sure the post office is ready, willing and able to deliver your mail.