New Address Point service available in five Mayo post offices
AN Post has joined with charities and service providers to launch Address Point, a ground-breaking, free personal postal address and letter collection service for people who are homeless or living in temporary accommodation.
The five offices within Mayo providing the Address Point service are located at Ballina, Ballinrobe, Ballyhaunis, Castlebar and Claremorris.
Whether it’s trying to arrange medical appointments, dealing with children’s schools, applying for jobs, or trying to keep in touch with family and friends, Address Point is a practical, simple service which generates a personal address based on the person’s choice of local post office, which will be their mail collection point.
Address Point is available to people who are homeless or living in temporary emergency accommodation through charities working in the area of homelessness and the housing department of local authorities.
An Post is providing all the charities, service providers and local authorities with information leaflets about Address Point to assist them in advising their clients about accessing the service. These groups include Dublin Simon, Focus Ireland, Peter McVerry Trust, Merchant’s Quay Ireland, St. Vincent de Paul, Capuchin Day Centre, Threshold, Inner City Helping Homeless, Cross Care and Dublin City Council Homeless Executive.
In conjunction with services providers and charities working in the area of homelessness, an instant address is generated online using a mobile phone or laptop, for use on all correspondence, and then mail is collected on production of photo ID at the post office of choice.
Should a person move to a new locality, a new address can be immediately generated, linked to a post office in the new location.
Said Debbie Byrne, managing director of An Post Retail: “We are keenly aware of the difficulties which can result from people not having a reliable, secure mailing address or letter collection point to access vital services we all take for granted and in looking for a job. The input and support of both service users, service providers, An Post staff and postmasters was invaluable in bringing Address Point from a good idea to an easily accessible service based around a choice of almost 200 local post offices country-wide.”