The Aftermath

So... the dreaded SSI meeting has come and gone - for now. How did it go? Who knows. I can say, with some amount of accuracy, that at least I lived through it.

I got to the building about a half an hour before it opened, which put me about twentieth in the line of people waiting for the place to open. Once the doors were open, the obviously well trained security guards kept us in a fairly organized line, allowing us to individually go into the main waiting area. Once inside, we would go up to the kiosk, enter in our information and then take out a ticket with a number on it. From there, it was time to take a seat... and wait.

One by one, numbers were called. Some of these numbers belonged to people that were there before me, some of them belonged to people that came in after me. As I sat there waiting, l began to notice that all of the numbers they were calling either started with the letter “A”, or they had no letter at all. My number started with the letter “D”. Why was this? What did it mean? Did it mean, “DIre”? Did it mean, “Drop his claim”? Did it mean, “Don’t let him leave without him being arrested”?  I had plenty of time to stew on it, but I never figured it out.

Eventually (very eventually), they didn’t even call my number. Instead, they called out for “Samuel”. Since no one else got up, I figured this must be me (or rather, Sam). But fortunately, Sam wasn’t with me.

In the weeks leading up to this meeting, I made a phone call to the caseworker, or rather, the caseworker’s voicemail, saying that I had questions about the upcoming meeting. After four weeks went by, leaving five messages - all unreturned, I called the general number to see if I could talk with an actual Human Being. The Human Being that I managed to talk to, told me that Sam didn’t need to come with me. This was a relief. Sam would have been fine coming along, at least to start off with, but eventually, between the waiting and the crowd and the noise and the crowd - it would have gotten to him (as it was getting to me).

So, thanks to H.B. for getting Sam off the hook. But the thing is, H.B. had also told me that I didn’t need to bring along any additional information - which I thankfully ignored. Instead, I lugged my overstuffed binder of “current” information along with me to the meeting.

This came in handy because when it was my time in the "hot seat". Mr. SSI asked me questions about medical history and dates and, most of all, asked me for copies of Sam's pay stubs.

I won’t get into all of the particulars of this meeting, but there are two things to mention.

First, Mr. SSI told me that, even though Sam is still classified as a student, I should be reporting his income. This, I delicately pointed out, completely contradicted everything that many other people had already told me,and not just normal people, I'm talking SSI people - including his previous case worker. But Mr. SSI insisted it was true and I, sensing the possibility of an arrest warrant in my future, didn’t want to push my luck.

The thing about Sam’s income is, as meager as it is, it doesn’t count against his benefits - as long as he’s a student. Mr. SSI agrees that this is indeed the case, but for some reason, he says it still needs to be reported.

Ok, whatever. No big deal. Just one more thing to keep on top of.

The other thing is, at the end of this meeting, Mr. SSI printed out a ten page report for my review and records. Most of the things in this report are pretty mundane (No, Sam doesn’t have any felonies) but one thing that caught my eye was a comment at the bottom of the first page. It read, “His disability began on December 28, 2016”. I pointed out that Sam’s disability has essentially been there since birth.

But before I could get all the words out, Mr. SSI immediately shot back with, “We don’t make that determination in this office.” (Picture this being said as if it was all one word.)

Still sensing no immediate arrest warrant (though the possibility now seemed more plausible), I decided not to pursue the subject. I decided that instead, I would review the rest of the report at home.

So, I thanked Mr. SSI for his time and I left, taking my report and my overstuffed binder with me, leaving behind the sweat-soaked chair.

At home, I read through the rest of the report. Other than some threatening language about perjury, most of it seemed pretty straight forward. But I did come up with what might be a couple of issues. First, under "household expenses," most of the values they’re carrying are lower than our actual amounts. I’m not sure how big a deal this is.

But a bigger deal might be that under Sam’s name, where it says “Blind or Disabled”, it says “Yes” (correct), and under “Married”, it says “No” (also correct), but under “Student” it says “No” (NOT correct).

I can’t help but think this is going to play into the aforementioned income reporting issue.

It shouldn’t be a problem, though. The next morning, I called the office and left a voicemail for Mr. SSI. I’m expecting a call back any minute now.