I have done a lot of work with the Homeless Council here in Winston Salem. We have a serious homeless problem and between 25% to 28% of the homeless are veterans. We don't have enough shelters to house our homeless. We don't have enough food to feed our homeless. We don't have enough free medical clinics to treat our poor. The churches are overwhelmed and don't have the money to help all of their parishioners who need help let alone those outside of the church. On every major street corner you see them with handmade cardboard signs asking for help.
Follow me below the orange cheeto for an insiders look of working with the poor and homeless and the hidden problems that Government shut downs cause.
I am one of the many senior citizens living solely on Social Security and with only Medicare health insurance. What is comes down to is after working since high school I live on poverty wages and struggle to make ends meet. I am now a full time caregiver to a 100% disabled brother who lives on disability. Fortunately we have direct deposit and so far that hasn't been affected by Government shut downs.
One of the problems we encounter are people who qualify for social security but need a check instead of direct deposit. I have worked for banks before. In order to get an account you need a valid address. You need valid I.D. Banks are trying to show that they are taking steps to prevent money laundering but of course it is the poor who are affected the most. I worked with people who had no fixed address. They stay with various friends. The grab a night in any shelter available. There is no rent agreement, no utility bill that says "this is my address." Their checks need to be manually processed providing that enough people are working to process them. Rep. Randy Forbes (R) of Virginia suggests that "seniors could see delays in receiving their checks due to under-staffed offices." Where we saw that the most was when people had changed addresses and the staff wasn't there to make the changes so the checks went to the wrong place. We had people that we managed to find low cost housing for that needed that check to pay the rent on time. I live in a low cost apartment and believe me they are not forgiving. They want the rent on time or they will start the immediate eviction process. It happened to my next door neighbor. The landlords only care about the places being filled. Trying to track down a misaddressed piece of mail in a town the size of Winston Salem is hard. When they are returned "not at this address no forwarding address" it becomes a nightmare. You have to have a person at Social Security to physically locate the check that had been returned and then reissue. That takes time. Time the poor may not have.
Last shutdown impacted our ability to get new disability claims made. Almost all new disability claims are rejected the first time. Social Security did not initially staff enough people to process these claims. We have homeless Vets who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Vets suffering from PTSD who need to be on disability. I've worked directly with these people. Every day that their application is delayed is another day without proper shelter, food, or help with their PTSD. When Social Security finally put on more people last shut down we had to deal with trying to find our client's forms among all the new forms that came in while they were furloughed. It caused more delays.
It doesn't help to tell people that Social Security and Medicare is fully funded and eventually you will get your money. Eventually doesn't pay the rent. Eventually doesn't put food in empty stomachs. Eventually doesn't get your needed medicine. Past experience shows that Social Security and Medicare is not fully staffed from the start. It is hard enough at normal times to get the people processed who need help. Eventually putting on staff meant a delay in benefits. Our poor, our homeless, and our homeless veterans need help now not eventually.