Vet Told To Quit His Job Before Applying For Aid

Officials of the Social Security Income office in Massachusetts told a veteran who applied for help that he would have to quit his job before they could assess his eligibility for funding, two law school professors say.

“But he was afraid to quit because he would have insufficient money to exist,” wrote Michael Coyne and Diane Sullivan of the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover in the Lowell, Mass., Sun.

The veteran, whom they say suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and crippled hands, nevertheless completed the necessary paperwork yet “months and months later there was still no decision, no money, and no real help,” Coyne and Sullivan said. “At that point, he was told that unless an individual is homeless, it takes well over a year to process a claim for his benefits.” The authors did not identify the veteran by name.

The SSI’s position in the case of this veteran appears to be in conflict with its stated mission, to help the aged, blinded and disabled who have little or no income and to provide them with cash for food, clothing and shelter. Having some income, therefore, should not have automatically disqualified the veteran from applying for SSI.

“For a governmental agency to take a position that you must become destitute and homeless before expediting assistance is shameful,” Coyne and Sullivan write. Fortunately for the veteran, Senator John Kerry’s (D.-Mass.) office stepped in and the veteran got SSI aid.

“With billions of dollars of stimulus money being spent on far less worthwhile projects, we can and must do better. It is morally reprehensible to think a veteran must be homeless in the winter in New England or in the scorching heat of the South to get his or her file reviewed and acted upon in a timely manner,” Coyne and Sullivan point out. They noted that $6 billion in stimulus money is being lavished on various college building projects “at universities with bloated budgets” when service men and women should be put first.

“Too many men and women have gone off in service of their country only to return to a futile search for appropriate care for the wounds they sustained,” the law professors write.

They recalled that President Barack Obama in Veterans Day remarks at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier proclaimed that America will not let its veterans and their families down as “America is going to do right by them.” So the question, Coyne and Sullivan ask, is “When?” The answer, they say, will indicate whether the president is a man of his word.

Professor Coyne is associate dean of the Massachusetts School of Law and Sullivan is a professor at the law school. The school was purposefully founded to provide a rigorous, quality education to students from minority, low-income and immigrant backgrounds that would otherwise be unable to enter the legal profession.  #

Sherwood Ross

Sherwood Ross is an award-winning reporter. He served in the U.S Air Force where he contributed to his base newspaper. He later worked for The Miami Herald and Chicago Daily News. He contributed a weekly column on working for a major wire service. He is also an editorial and book publicist. He currently resides in Florida.