Under what circumstances can you use the address of a service organization or shelter?

**** The information written here is not legal advice and the author of this blog is not your lawyer.  These posts merely contain ideas to help you plan and organize your legal research and identify potentially helpful sources of law. ****

The law does not give anyone the right to use an agency’s address without permission. Shelters and service organizations will usually have clear policies if they allow clients to use their address to get mail. Those policies, which could require participation in particular services on a regular basis and over a certain amount of time, are a form of contract.  This means that only by agreeing to cooperate with the agency’s terms is somebody allowed to use the address.  Not cooperating is a breach of the contract.  Once the contract has been breached, the agency no longer has an obligation to allow that person to use the address and the staff can write “return to sender” on incoming mail.