HR
Street roots
3
April l í , 2014
When the
safety net
breaks
What happens when the state’s largest
payee service fo r poor and disabled
Oregonians closes its doors with short
warning? The city’s most vulnerable
residents scramble to pick u p the pieces
BY JAKE THOMAS
STA FF W R IT E R
r 1 \h e
walls at Safety Net of Oregon, a
nonprofit that once helped disabled
JL people manage their federalbenefits,
are usually covered with collages and fake
flowers. But now the plaster walls are bare
except for a sign stating that there will be
no tolerance for weapons, drugs, alcohol
and threatening behavior to staff. There’s
also a sign stating that Safety Net will be
shutting down April 1. “P.S. This is not an ?
April fool’s joke,” the sign concludes.
A client walks into Safety Net’s office on \ •
April 1. He’s wearing a weathered red ski
j'a c iœ ta n d ta tte re d s k i pants. H e re ce n tly „ ■
.
Lgot_oùt of jail an d h a s b e e n sle e p in g o n ■the'.,
streets. He speaks in rambling sentences to
the staff about how his mother will start
managing his benefits. The staff urge him to
get on a shuttle outside that’s taking people
to the Social Security office downtown so he
can get signed up with someone new to
manage his money. If he doesn’t do this,
they explain, he won’t have access to his ■
money.
“I can’t today,” he tells them.
“Honey,” a staff member replies in a
voice that is both urgent and gentle. “You
need to go to the Social Security,office.”
The man rambles about how he can’t do
it today, and he leaves Safety N et It’s
unclear when, if ever, he’ll make it to the
Social Security office.
With more than a thousand clients, Safety
Net of Oregon was the state’s largest payee
representative. Payees are individuals or
organizations assigned by the Social
Security Administration to manage the
disability benefits for individuals who are
unable to handle their money as aresult of
a physical dr mental impairment Payees
write rent and utility checks for their
clients.. Payees make sure there is money
set aside for their client’s medication or bus
pass. In essense, they are the gatekeepers
that stand between disability recipients and
financial catastrophe. And some disability
recipients could be facing catastrophe as a
result of the situation with Safety Net.
On March 6, as first reported byStreet
Roots, Safety Net was served with a federal
search warrant based on allegations that it; -
had mismanaged client funds. As a result of
the investigation, Safety Net was directed to
cease operations by thé Social Security
Administration. Safety Net served some of
Portland’s most vulnerable people, and its ;
closure threw some into an uncertain
situation.
benefit money to pay for rent, medications
or other necessities. Throughout the
process, the Social Security Administration
has been guided by its own internal' dynamic
that was not always in alignment with some
of the most challenged people it serves.
“I’m not aware of another case where a
large number of clients lost their
organizational payee as the way it’s
happened with Safety Net,” says Anna Rich,
litigation director at the Oakland, California-
based National Senior Citizens Law Center.
Trouble began a year ago when a routine
reviewof Safety Net by the Social Security
Administration found that the nonprofit was
not properly monitoring clients’ money.
According to the affidavit m support of the
search warrant, obtained by Street Roots,
Safety Net wasn’t performing bank account
reconciliations, checking fund balances prior
to isstfirig checks, nor was it properly
maintaining receipts and other documents.
At the time, Safety Net, which has been
approved to operate since 1998, was
receiving more than $700,000 per month in
Social Security, benefits, $300,000 in
veterans’ benefits and about $30,000 a
month in compensation.
As the review of Safety Net continued,
investigators found $600,000 unaccounted
for, according to the affidavit. Linda Stelling,
Safety Net’s CEO, told investigators that the
missing money was due to a software
problem. Stelling, who is described as
appearing “overwhelmed” in the affidavit,
, told investigators that she was going to
undergo a/serious medical procedure.
According to the affidavit, on Feb. 21,
Stelling was sent a notice that she was no
longer approved to be a payee effective
April 1.
he federal action taken against Safety
On March 6, federal agents wearing black
Net is rate and has little precedent. The jackets with the search warrant in hand
wind down of the troubled nonprofit
descended upon Safety Net’s office on
organization has not been smooth. With
Southeast Morrison Street. They took
Safety Net’s closing, some of these S
computers and files to find signs of
individuals faced, and still face, the very real malfeasance. Left on Safety Net’s window
threat of being unable to access their
■
P H O T O B Y J A K E T H O M A S
was a sign notifyingclients that it was
shutting down by the end of the month.
Clients were told they would need to find a
new payee by March 21.
No one at Safety Net has been charged
with a crime at this time. No one at Safety
Net would comment for this article. •-
In early March, the Social Security
Administration sent out a salyo of letters
written in bureaucratic languagé to the most
recent addresses on file for all of Safety
Net’s clients. The fetter, which was
sometimes accompanied with á phone call,
explained that Social Security
Administration was delaying the client’s
benefits and that they needed a new payee.
The Social Security Administration’s
approach of sending out a form fetter and
making a phone call to Safety Net clients
was bound to fail, according to homeless,
advocates and disability lawyers who’ve
been monitoring the situation. They point
out that ipany disability recipients are
homeless or are marginally housed in a
cheap hotel or other transitory living
situation. As a consequence, many of these
tetters and phone calls were destined for
outdated addresses or numbers. Many
disability recipients suffer from severe
mental illnesses, and there is concern that
they will have a difficult time with the Social
Security Administration bureaucracy..There
is also concern that the first notification
some former Safety .Net clients will receive
of the situation is an eviction notice.
“People áre not really understanding
what’s happening and wliy, ahd what it’s
going to mean to transfer their payee
representative and What happens if they
can’t,” Marc Jolin, the executive director of
the homeless outreach agency JOIN, told
Street Roots. “We’ve got people coming into
JOIN asking those questions pretty
regularly, not really understanding what’s
happening and looking for help trying to
See SAFETY NET, page 4
Payees are
individuals or
organizations
assigned by the
Social Security
Administration to
manage the
disability benefits (
for individuals who
are unable to
handle their money
as a result of a
physical or mental
impairment. '
Among other .
services, payees
write rent and
utility checks for
their clients, and
make sure there is
money set aside
for their clients’
medication or bus
pass.