Most Americans at some point or time face a financial hardship. This financial hardship can consist of credit card bills, medical bills, student loans or even the inability to keep up with mortgage or rent payments. These hardships occur everyday to people who are able to work fulltime, so just imagine what it might be like for someone who is unable to work at all or only on a part-time basis due to a disability?
Considering a typical claim for Social Security disability benefits can take up to two years or longer before seeing any money, the stress of being unable to pay your bills to maintain a decent quality of life can be overwhelming. Unfortunately there are no easy answers to this problem. Social Security will consider expediting the cases of people who are faced with homelessness or an inability to purchase food and medicine for themselves, but only at certain levels of the process. That means that people have to figure out a way to survive until they can either begin collecting disability benefits or return to work.
The first thing to do is to prioritize your needs. Obviously shelter is a need for everyone. If you are disabled and unable to work it will not do any good to ignore repeated calls from your mortgage company or landlord. It is better to inform them of your situation and see if they can work with you while you are unable to work. Contacting your local county to inquire about housing assistance is also a good idea as is the case with applying for food support. There are also agencies that will assist with energy assistance to help keep the lights and heat on.
Other sorts of debt like credit card debt, medical bills and student loans really pale in comparison. You have to concentrate on the necessities like food and shelter first and worry about the other bills after that. When it comes to credit card debt and medical bills there is really no reason to spend a lot of time worrying about bills you are unable to pay. There is always the option of working out payment plans when you actually have money to pay, but sometimes the debt can grow to be too high for nearly anyone to meet the obligation. Keep in mind, we are a Social Security disability law office and in no way offer legal advice on bankruptcy laws, but former clients of ours have sought assistance with discharging their credit card debt and medical bills through the assistance of a bankruptcy attorney.
Student loan debt is a bit of a different animal and is not discharged automatically through bankruptcy. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Education, those who file bankruptcy may have their student loans discharged only if all three of the following requirements are met:
- If you are forced to repay the loan, you would not be able to maintain a minimal standard of living.
- There is evidence that this hardship will continue for a significant portion of the loan repayment period.
- You made good-faith efforts to repay the loan before filing bankruptcy (usually this means you have been in repayment for a minimum of five years).
Typically these circumstances can be met in rare situations, but those who have been found disabled by the Social Security Administration may be able to have their loans discharged. In 2012, according to the Department of Education, “the government moved toward simplifying the loan forgiveness process by allowing disabled individuals to use their Social Security disability designation to get a discharge. This opens the process up for around 400,000 disabled people to discharge approximately $7.7 billion in student loans.
