If you’re looking for a job and they ask for an address, I find it hard to believe that shelters are set up to work as a “home address” so how the fuck you’d be able to apply for a job if you can’t find a way to piggy back on somebody’s PO Box and their home address for applications.
I've been there personally. I was advised by two separate people involved in state vocational programs and the shelter staff themselves to not use the shelter's street address on job applications, if it's avoidable.
Considering the potential "one shot" you get at most of these fucking employers/companies with the unaccountable Gestapo bullshit their human resources departments are known for, and not knowing whether they retain applications for future reference if someone applies multiple times, I decided to spend some of my dwindling money on a PO box. And even then I was questioned at two different interviews about it, not too invasively but enough to further fray my nerves in an already precarious situation I was desperate to get out of.
I couldn't even get a fucking library card when using a shelter's street address without being questioned about it.
By my own experience I would say it's necessary and should be legally mandated as long as this fucked up Calvinist society and the majority of private businesses which gatekeep the ability to pay for housing maintain their bigoted stigma against destitute people.