An 80-year-old woman from Washington D.C. spent more than 15 years living on the street waiting for Social Security to correct a mistake and provide the money she was owed to live on. It sounds like a made-up story, but as you can see here The Washington Post chronicles the all too true story.
There is no reason to rehash all the specific details of the story in The Washington Post, but Wanda Witter battled Social Security for well over a decade to get her Social Security payments. At first Social Security would send monthly checks that were different amounts each time and Witter decided not to cash them until the mistake was corrected. Unfortunately the mistake was never corrected and Social Security stopped sending payments all together which led to Witter having to sleep on the streets. All during this time Witter kept paperwork that proved Social Security had made mistakes, but she was having trouble finding someone who could help her. After living on the streets of Washington D.C. for 16 years and suffering incredible hardship that included being the victim of an assault, Witter got the help she needed and Social Security was finally convinced Witter was owed money to the tune of more than $100,000 for all those checks Social Security should have been sending out. Witter started getting her monthly checks and is now on her feet again in her own place.
The story of Wanda Witter is a unique one because of how long it took Social Security to correct an egregious mistake, but mistakes where payments stop when they should not happen all too often and we have clients who can verify this. The real problem was that no one believed Witter’s story, but it turned out to be true and there are probably several other Wanda Witter’s out there who just need someone to listen.
