Street roots
April 25, 2014
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TRU ST, fro m p a ge 4
payees who might be more likely, to commit
fraud, Curt Decker, the executive director of
National Disability Rights Network, says that
oversight is still a challenge. In some'cases,
he says, it might be “virtually impossible” to
know about severe abuse being committed
by payees. “It’s a reliance on people to do
the right thing.”
Eighty five percent of all payees are
family members of the recipient. In
situations where a family member isn’t.',
available, a social service nonprofit often
steps in. Sometimes individuals not related
to the disability recipient will serve as a
payee. It’s the latter type of payees, says
Decker, that are particularly difficult to
monitor.
One of the most infamous cases of payee
abuse involved six disabled adults being held
in subhuman dungeon-like conditions. Last
year, five individuals in Philadelphia were
indicted on wide range of criminal charges,
including racketeering, hate crimes against
disabled people, sex trafficking, forced
human labor, theft, fraud, among others.
Linda Weston, the alleged ringleader in
the scheme, targeted disabled individuals,
luring them into her family home and telling
them that she would serve as their payee
and take care of them, according to the
federal indictment Once the victim signed
over their control of their benefits, they
were moved to a locked room, basement,
attic or closet. They were fed a low-calorie,
high-starch diet to keep their energy levels
low. Victims were denied access to medical
attention and even bathrooms. If they
complained, they were beaten. Weston had
previously been convicted of killing her
sister’s boyfriend in the 198ds,’but was still
approved to be a payee. Law enforcement
didn’t find out about Weston through an
accourrahg form, a passerby accidently
discovered the victims bding held in the
basement
Another infamous case involved Henry’s
Turkey Farm in rural Iowa. The farm, which
was found to have exploited 32 people,
recruited disabled men from Texas. Offering
to serve as their payee, the farm also
promised the men work gutting turkeys.
The farm charged the men fonroom and
board out of their disability cheeks and paid
them $65 a month for their labor. Most of
the workers also lived in an aging
bunkhouse with Ohly a space heater for
warmth. They were subject to physical
abuse, denied medical care and had their
freedom of movement restricted. This
arrangement went on for more than 20
’years.
In 2012, the Oregon Department of
Human Services investigated four alleged
cases of financial abuse by a payee. “Social
Security really doesn’t have any reasonable
mechanism for enforcing how payees act”
said Bob Joondeph, executive director of
Disability Rights Oregon. “There is a way to
remove a payee, but it’s rare; it’s
cumbersome.
Joondeph’s organization recently joined .
the Oregon Law Center in suing the Social
Security Administration for it’s handling of
clients following the Safety Net of Oregon
closure. Joondeph says that part of the
problem is that it’s difficult to determine
the credibility of complaints from disability
beneficiaries because it often comes back to
the question of, “What got you a payee to
begin with?”
A look at complaints against Portland-
based organizational payees filedj>y their
clients with the Oregon attorney general
underscores this point. Many complaints are
rambling and difficult to size up, yet some
express concerns over how their money is
being handled. ,
The Social Security Administration has
taken some steps to provide greater
oversight of the payee program. It has
shifted its approach in reviewing payee
accounting forms from giving extra attention
to a random sample to now giving more
scrutiny to those that have more potential
for abuse, In Philadelphia, the Social
Security Administration began a pilot
program to screen and bar payee applicants
convicted of crimes such as robbery and
fraud. However, the agency has not
developed a comprehensive plan for
addressing the challenges this program
faces over the long term, according to a
recent Government Accountability Office
report, which notes that the Office of the
Inspector General has identified TBS?**
program as a significant managerial *
challenge.
During a June 2013 congressional
subcommittee hearing on the payee system,
LaTina Burse Greene, an'assistant deputy
commissioner at the Social Security
Administration, told the panel that the
agency is legally barred from accessing an
FBI database to background potential
payees. She acknowledged that relying on
self-reporting of applicants is inadequate.
She also said the Social Security
Administration has been starved of
resources.
“So for the last three years, we have
f l ï
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received a billion dollars less than the
president’s budget*” she said.. “We have lost
over ten thousand employees since fiscal
year 2011, and we will lose more this fiscal
year. We currently expend 1,900 work hours
on representative payee activities alone.
That investment in representative payee
activities won’t increase unless we get more
resources from Congress.”
“From a social policy point of view, (the
payee system) is a very inexpensive way to
deal with the fact that a lot of people who
receive benefits have problems hahdling
their Own money,” says Joondeph. However,
this inexpensive way might not be viable in
the long term. Currently there is a shortage
of payees, which is expected to get worse aS
the population ages.
According to the most recent report from
the Government Accountability Office on
the pâyee program, “the proportion of v
elderly individuals is projected to grow to >.
nearly 20 percent of the total population
over thé next two decades and it is
estimated that the number of aged
beneficiaries could increase from over 38
million in 2012 to over 72 million in 2035.”
The report notes that efforts by the,Social
Security Administration to find more payees
have been unsuccessful. “This projected
growth in the size of the beneficiary
population has implications for the
Representative Payee Program and the
resources required to find and monitor
payees in the future.”
Mellani Calvin, a Portland-based non
attorney representative for people seeking
disability benefits, says that being a payee is
a pretty thankless job. Most payees are
allowed to keep about $40 a month from the
disability check, which averages around
$900, in compensation. Calvin explains that
in order for someone to become a
professional payee they would need to take
on a large number of clients, many of whom
i§Mhe¥ with
substance abuse.
“Small entrepreneurs don’t really want to
engage with huge federal bureaucracies,”
she said. ;
Kim Allen is a money management. I
specialist at Central City Concern
overseeing the social service nonprofit’s
payee service, which hovers around 120
clients. She says that Central City Concern
runs a tight program with many layers of
oversight, and the money they take out of
each disability check doesn’t cover their
costs. She also says that the money taken
out of some disability recipients checks,
which can be as low as $530, can present a
real hardship for clients.
“Here’s my biggest beef,” says Kathleen
Roy, director of mental health services for
Central City Concern. “This is such ah
essential service for keeping people well
and in safe housing and to just kind of have
a life, but there is no payment for i t ”
Oregon has already seen the potential
impact of not having enough payees. In
April, Safety Net of Oregon,.a nonprofit that
served as a representative payee was
ordered to shut its doors after a review by
the Social Security Administration found
that it $600,000 in clients’ funds were
unaccounted for. With about 1,000 clients, it
was the state’s largest payee service. It was
also considered by some to be the payee of
last resort Documents describe Linda
Stelling, the nonprofit’s CEO, as appearing
overwhelmed.
When the nonprofit was ordered to shut,
it created a crisis for hundreds of its former
clients who had to navigate the Social
Security, bureaucracy to find a new payee or
risk not being able to access their money for
rent, medications and other necessities.
“Social Security, because of the lack of
community services, has relied on this
nonprofit incapable of doing this job,” says
George Wall, a disability attorney.
Wall says that the solution is to first
acknowledge that serving as a payee is
going to be a money-loser. Second, he says,
some government agency should step up
with a more comprehensive approach, not
just serving as a payee but also providing
“wrap-around” services, connecting clients
with housing and other services. He says
that Santa Clara County, Calif., used to do
that, and he’d like to see the approach
brought back.
However, having the same entity serve as
a payee and also provide services could be
p ro b le m a tic . A 2 0 0 7 s tu d y fro m t h e N atio n al
Research Council noted, “When a
representative payee is a creditor of a
beneficiary, either as a landlord or as a
provider of board and care, it is unclear
whose interests are being served.”
Decker, of the National Disability Rights
Network, says that it’s time to review the
whole system, but in’the shorter term it is a
question of resources.
“People like to pretend that money is not
an issue and it is,” he says. “In a very bad
budget climate with lots of talk about deficit
reduction that means individuals might be
exploited or abused.”
Sisters O f The Road
a non-profit cafe in Old Town
“ Folks who come in are
not ¡ust passive recipients
of services, but have the
option to participate
in the work of the cafe.
Because of this, everyone
can potentially feet a
| | j | sense of ownership,
collaborative effort, of
being useful.”- Volunteer
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All ore welcome»
Monday * Friday 1Oam-2s3Opm
133 NW Sixth Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
main: soi 222 5694
www.sistersoftheroad.org