Greater than a yr after the federal authorities first lower off her incapacity advantages, Denise Woods drives nightly to strip malls, truck stops, and parking heaps round Savannah, Georgia, in search of a secure place to sleep in her Chevy.

Woods, 51, stated she had rented a three-bedroom home she shared along with her grownup son and grandson till March 2022, when the federal government terminated her incapacity funds with out discover.

In line with letters despatched by the Social Safety Administration, the company decided it had been overpaying Woods and demanded she ship again practically $58,000.

Woods could not give you the cash. So, till February 2026, the company is withholding the $2,048 in incapacity she would have acquired every month.

“I nonetheless do not know the way it occurred,” stated Woods, who has requested a waiver and is searching for a listening to. “Nobody will give me solutions. It takes weeks or months to get a caseworker on the cellphone. They’ve made my life insufferable.”

Kilolo Kijakazi, performing commissioner of the Social Safety Administration, informed a congressional subcommittee in October that her company notifies recipients once they have acquired overpayments and works to “assist those that need to set up compensation plans or who search waiver of the debt.”

However reduction from overpayments goes to solely a comparatively small variety of individuals. And lots of others face dire penalties: Some change into homeless, are evicted from rental housing, or see their mortgages fall into foreclosures.

The SSA has a painful legacy of excluding Black individuals from advantages. Right this moment the company’s personal revealed analysis reveals its overpayments most frequently hit Black and Hispanic individuals, the poorest of the poor, these with the least training, and people whose medical circumstances are unlikely to enhance.

Woods is one in all tens of millions who’ve been focused within the Social Safety Administration’s try and claw again billions of {dollars} it says was wrongly despatched to beneficiaries. Years can cross earlier than the company catches a mistake, and even the little bit additional it would ship every month can add up.

In reclaiming it, the federal government is imposing money owed that may attain tens of hundreds of {dollars} in opposition to these least capable of pay.

‘Wreaking havoc in individuals’s lives’

KFF Well being Information and Cox Media Group reporters interviewed individuals who have acquired overpayment notices and nonprofit attorneys who advocate for them and reviewed SSA publications, coverage papers, and congressional testimony.

A 64-year-old Florida man stated he might not afford hire after his Social Safety retirement funds had been garnished final yr as a result of he allegedly had been overpaid $35,176 in incapacity advantages. He stated he now lives in a tent within the woods. A 24-year-old Pennsylvania lady residing along with her mom and youthful siblings in public housing misplaced the prospect to purchase her own residence due to an alleged $6,063 overpayment that accrued when she was a toddler.

“Social Safety overpayments are wreaking havoc in individuals’s lives,” stated Jen Burdick, an lawyer with Group Authorized Companies of Philadelphia, which represents purchasers who’ve acquired overpayment notices. “They’re asking the poorest amongst us to account for each greenback they get. Underneath their guidelines, some individuals can save up cash for a funeral burial however not sufficient to get housing.”

Woods has lupus and congestive coronary heart failure and struggles to stroll, however she began working part-time after her advantages had been rescinded. She stated she makes $14 an hour transporting railroad crew members in her 2015 Chevy Equinox between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida, when she will be able to get assignments and her well being permits it.

The SUV prices $386 a month — a big portion of her revenue — however with out it, Woods stated, she wouldn’t have a job or a spot to sleep.

“My life is simply survival now,” Woods stated. “Typically I really feel like I’m simply ready to die.”

The Social Safety Administration has stated it’s required by legislation to aim to get better overpayments. Notices ask beneficiaries to repay the cash immediately. Authorities also can recoup cash by lowering or halting month-to-month advantages and garnishing wages and federal tax refunds.

Company officers describe an orderly course of during which they clarify to beneficiaries the explanation for the overpayment and provide the prospect to attraction the choice and have the fees waived if they can not afford it. One technique to qualify for a waiver is that if “paying us again would imply you can not pay your payments for meals, clothes, housing, medical care or different needed bills,” in response to a letter despatched to 1 recipient.

These most impacted by Social Safety’s selections, together with individuals with disabilities and widows receiving survivors’ advantages, paint a unique image. They discuss having their advantages terminated with out clarification or warning, an appeals course of that may drag on for years, and an lack of ability to get solutions from the SSA to even fundamental questions.

Nancy Altman, president of Social Safety Works, a gaggle that pushes for the safety and growth of this system, recalled how disturbing it was when a colleague’s mom acquired an overpayment discover.

“After weeks of nonstop cellphone calls, he was capable of get the matter resolved, however not earlier than it put his mom within the hospital,” Altman stated. “One can simply think about how a lot worse it will be for somebody for whom English is just not their native language, who lacks a highschool training, and who’s unassisted by such a educated and caring advocate.”

Issues surrounding the Social Safety Administration are aggravated by congressional actions, together with funding shortages that introduced company staffing to a 25-year low by the top of fiscal yr 2022. Even so, advocates for individuals with disabilities say the company does far lower than it might to assist individuals who have been overpaid, typically by no fault of their very own.

They stated challenges confronted by beneficiaries underscore how overpayments disproportionately influence Black individuals and different minority teams at the same time as President Joe Biden and Social Safety leaders promise to repair racial inequity in authorities applications.

Most overpayments are linked to the Supplemental Safety Earnings program, which supplies cash to individuals with little or no revenue who’re disabled, blind, or at the least 65. Nearly all of SSI recipients are Black, Hispanic, or Asian individuals.

“Congress has turned a blind eye to this,” stated David Weaver, a former affiliate commissioner for analysis, demonstration, and employment help on the SSA. Politicians “simply need to get monetary savings. It’s misplaced priorities. It’s fully inexcusable.”

The Social Safety Administration didn’t make its leaders accessible for an interview. Spokesperson Nicole Tiggemann declined to reply questions in regards to the circumstances of Woods and different beneficiaries, citing privateness legal guidelines.

In a written assertion, Tiggemann acknowledged that receiving an overpayment discover could be “unsettling,” however stated the company helps beneficiaries navigate the method and informs them of their rights in the event that they consider they weren’t at fault or can not repay the debt.

“Even when they don’t need to attraction or request a waiver, the discover says to contact us if the deliberate withholding would trigger hardship,” Tiggemann stated. “We now have versatile compensation choices — together with compensation of as little as $10 per 30 days. Every individual’s state of affairs is exclusive, and we deal with overpayments on a case-by-case foundation.”

Critics say preventing an overpayment discover is just not that straightforward.

Beneficiaries — many challenged by bodily, psychological, or mental disabilities — typically are overwhelmed by advanced paperwork or unable to seek out monetary paperwork that could be years previous.

The Social Safety Administration has the authority to waive overpayments if officers decide recovering them would violate “fairness and good conscience,” or the disputed quantity falls under sure thresholds. The company’s steerage additionally says amassing an overpayment “defeats the aim” when the “particular person wants considerably all of their present revenue to satisfy their present extraordinary and needed residing bills.”

Advocates for individuals with disabilities contend most overpayments come up from delays in processing paperwork and errors by the Social Safety Administration or recipients making harmless errors. The company can waive overpayments when the beneficiary is discovered not at fault.

However in fiscal yr 2023, the Social Safety Administration collected about $4.9 billion in overpayments with an extra $23 billion but uncollected, in response to an company report. Simply $267 million was waived, the report stated.

David Camp, the interim chief government officer of the Nationwide Group of Social Safety Claimants’ Representatives, which advocates for enhancements in federal incapacity applications, stated the Social Safety Administration is a “damaged construction.”

The company typically tries to claw again overpayments from individuals falsely accused of failing to offer required paperwork, Camp stated.

“Dropping off types at their area workplaces is just not a assure” paperwork can be processed, he stated. “Mail is sluggish, or it does not get opened. We see it so many occasions you’re left with the concept that has to do with the construction.”

Left destitute

Advocacy teams and others stated they do not know how many individuals change into homeless after their advantages are terminated, however they are saying anecdotal accounts are frequent.

A research discovered that greater than 800,000 incapacity candidates from 2007 to 2017 skilled homelessness. Advocates say it solely is sensible that overpayments could lead on extra individuals to change into homeless, since practically 40% of individuals receiving incapacity advantages expertise meals insecurity and can’t sustain with their hire and utility payments, in response to analysis.

Ronald Harrell sleeps within the woods close to Wildwood, Florida, about 50 miles northwest of Orlando. He stated he shelters in a tent, cooks his meals on a small grill, and showers at a buddy’s home.

Harrell, 64, stated he rented a room in a home for $125 per week till final yr, when the Social Safety Administration lower off his retirement advantages.

A letter the SSA despatched him, dated Feb. 6, 2023, says his advantages are being withheld due to overpayment of $35,176 that accrued when Harrell acquired incapacity funds. The letter acknowledges he has requested the company to decrease his funds.

“I do not know the way they’re doing this to me,” Harrell stated. “I did all the pieces by the legislation.”

Harrell stated he as soon as labored as an HVAC technician, however nerve harm left him unable to work someday round 2002.

He stated he collected incapacity advantages till about 2009, when rehabilitation allowed him to return to the workforce, and he stated he reported the knowledge to the federal authorities. Harrell stated he utilized for early Social Safety retirement advantages final yr when his well being once more declined.

“I began working after I was 16,” Harrell stated. “I by no means thought my life could be like this.”

Kijakazi, the performing Social Safety commissioner, and others have stated overpayments stem at the least partly from low staffing and price range cuts.

From 2010 to 2023, the company’s customer support price range dropped by 17%, after inflation, in response to a report by the Middle on Finances and Coverage Priorities, a suppose tank that conducts analysis on authorities applications.

On the identical time, the report says, the variety of Social Safety beneficiaries grew by practically 12 million individuals, or 22%.

Jonathan Stein, a former lawyer with Group Authorized Companies of Philadelphia who has participated in workgroups and conferences with federal officers about entry to Social Safety funds for susceptible populations, stated price range cuts can not absolutely account for the company’s penchant for denying functions and terminating advantages.

Officers suspended Supplemental Safety Earnings advantages for about 136,540 individuals in 2019 for “failure to furnish report,” which suggests they didn’t meet deadlines or paperwork necessities, Stein stated, regardless of realizing lots of these individuals had been unable to contact the company as a result of they’re homeless or have been evicted and misplaced entry to telephones and computer systems.

That is greater than double the quantity in 2010, he stated.

“They’ve an implicit bias for denying advantages,” Stein stated. “It’s a very skewed view of integrity. It reinforces a tradition of suspicion and prosecution of candidates.”

The 24-year-old Pennsylvania lady who acquired Supplemental Safety Earnings as a toddler due to a studying incapacity described her ordeal on the situation that her identify not be revealed. A letter from the Social Safety Administration says she acquired an overpayment discover for greater than $6,000.

“It was irritating,” the lady stated. “You’re coping with nasty individuals on the cellphone. I could not get any solutions.”

In November 2022, she contacted a nonprofit legislation agency, which helped her file an attraction. One yr later, she acquired one other letter from Social Safety saying the overpayment had been waived as a result of it was not her fault. The letter additionally stated officers wouldn’t search compensation as a result of she couldn’t afford fundamental wants similar to meals and housing with out the month-to-month advantages.

The lady had already paid a worth.

She lived in public housing and the Philadelphia Housing Authority had supplied her an opportunity to satisfy a long-held purpose of proudly owning a home. However when the overpayment appeared on her credit score report, she stated, she couldn’t receive a mortgage.

“I used to be enthusiastic about getting my own residence,” she stated. “That is what everyone needs. Shedding it isn’t a superb feeling.”

David Hilzenrath of KFF Well being Information, Jodie Fleischer of Cox Media Group, and Ben Becker of ActionNewsJax in Jacksonville, Florida, contributed to this report.

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