John Helinski, 62, was once a member of Tampa's "invisible" population.

Homeless for about three years, his address was a cardboard box placed near a downtown Tampa bus stop. "(I was) sleeping underneath the benches there and no one would see me," he explained to ABC news. Life was hard, but he managed to scrape by.

Those scraping by days came to an end recently when Helinski met DACCO case manager Charles Inman and Tampa Police Officer Dan McDonald. The two pooled their resources to help get Helinski the proper identification needed to secure services on his behalf – a birth certificate, Social Security card, driver's license. His identification had been stolen from him at some point, McDonald said. As they began navigating the system to restore the Polish-born American citizen's identification papers, they came across a bank account in his name. That bank account was opened by Helinski long before at the former Landmark Bank. By the time the branch became a Bank of America location, Helinski had forgotten about the account and the Social Security benefits that had been stacking up in his name.

The first clue a bank account might exist came when McDonald took Helinski to the Social Security office to look into getting him a temporary ID card. "He (Helinski) was under the impression he wasn't getting any benefits," McDonald told Patch. "We got him a temporary ID and I just asked him some questions."

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3rd Arrest for 90-Year-Old Man Who Feeds the Homeless

Sarasota Plans to Bus the Homeless Out of Town As it turned out, Helinski was not only getting benefits, they had been piling up for some time. The money was going into that long-forgotten account.