Many of you know the ordeal that I had with the Social Security Administration (SSA). For those of you who don't, I was accused of being overpaid and asked to pay back over $9,000. The overpayment was caused by my misunderstanding of what qualified me for SSI. Most of that confusion was caused by the fact that in my 8 years of working with the SSA, I never recede any information or correspondence in an accessible format. In fact, when I explained to them that I couldn't read the letters they sent me, their response was that the department assumes that the blind have their mail read to them. This response and attitude is unacceptable. The American Council of the Blind (ACB) is taking the SSA to court to demand that they follow the guidelines of section 504 and provide information in accessible formats.
On the 14th of this month, the trial against the SSA began in a district court in northern California. After four years of litigation, and the ACB and SSA unable to come to an agreement, the issue has moved to a court room. The SSA claims that providing correspondence in an accessible format would cause them undue hardship and high administrative costs. They also claim that SSA case workers call their blind clients more frequently to check in with them.
As this article points out, according to the three million patrons that the SSA serves,their argument just doesn't cut it. I am just one example of someone who has been hurt by the SSA not providing correspondence in an accessible format. I can honestly tell you that I was not given the list of rules for receiving SSI until after I lost my benefits, and that's only after I personally requested them. I also only spoke to my case worker a hand full of times, and half the time I didn't even know who my case worker was. There are too many blind citizens in this country who rely on Social Security payments to survive. I don't care how much it costs them to make these changes because it's morally wrong for them to continue to negatively impact people's lives because they think providing this service is too hard or would cost too much.
The trial is scheduled to last for one more week, and I plan to update everyone when I find out what the judge decides. If this is an issue that is important to you, consider contacting your congressional representatives. No one should have to experience what I did because their government refuses to accommodate them.
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Identification by Color, Not for Me
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by Donna J. Jodhan
When I had sufficient vision, I used to depend heavily on colors to help me
identify things. I could remember that when I was growing u...
4 days ago
I think the much bigger and more important question here is why are so many "blind citizens" reliant on handouts from the social security administration? I am blind myself, and over 90% of the blind people I know sit around all day, complain about their situation, and do not work, nor do they have any desire to work. This is the problem all of us should be trying to address. Not whining about whether our mail is accessible or not, but what we can do to encourage the entire blind community to throw off the entitlement mentality and start to make something of themselves. While there is of course some fault with the system in general, the system is what it is. 99% of the problem lies within the attitudes of the people in the blind community. It is time we stop complaining, relying on government handouts, and get off our asses and get a job and work for a living, like everyone else in the world has to do. I am of course referring to the great majority of us who can do this and choose not to; there are always exceptions, and I have no problem with those individuals. But just because we are blind doesn't mean others have to feel sorry for us or give us money to survive. That is nothing but an insult. I have never taken a dollar of government money in my life; I have worked for everything I have on my own. After all, why would I ever take government handouts? That is someone else's money. And it is no one else's responsibility to provide for me; it is my own. Further more, it is the attitude of these so many blind people who claim they can't work and live off handouts that continues to spread the myth that blind people are utterly helpless. We are only helpless because many of us find it easier to think that way. It is easy to sit on one's ass, take someone else's money, and whine and whine about life. It is much harder to say to oneself, "I am going to take charge of my own life," make myself presentable, get an education, find a job, and be as successful and live up to my potential as much as possible." Speaking for myself, I'd much rather work hard and be admired for it than sit around, take the easy way out, and be pitied for it. It is time that we all in the blind community take a long, hard look at ourselves, wake up, and rejoin reality.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your perspective, and for the most part I agree with you. I do think that the blind community needs to do all that we can to earn a living for ourselves, but there is a good reason why programs like SSI and SSD exist. I am a college graduate and have spent more time since I graduated unemployed then I have employed, and it's not from a lack of trying. I received SSi during and after college so that I could survive, not because I'm unemployable, but because I couldn't get anyone to hire me. I think you should be proud of the fact that you've never taken federal benefits, but you shouldn't look down upon those that do. There are members of our community that just want a hand out, but there are probably more that are like me, and just want to work like the rest of the world and aren't given the opportunity to prove ourselves.
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