For Diane Grooms, doing everyday things hurts all the time.
For 25 years, the St. Paul woman has suffered pain in her joints from rheumatoid arthritis; more recently, the pain has been complicated by fibromyalgia. Last summer, the combination got to be too much.
"I feel like somebody took a baseball bat and just beat me," she said.
Unable to continue working, Grooms applied to the Social Security Administration for disability insurance payments. Her application was denied. She asked to have her application reconsidered, and it was denied again. Then she asked for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge....
As a single person, she had no other source of income, such as a working spouse. Before long, she couldn't pay her rent.
She was running out of time and money. Ordinarily, she wouldn't get an appearance before the administrative law judge for another 18 months because of the huge number of Social Security disability cases....
Grooms was broke and behind on her rent, but she said a Social Security official told her she'd have to be homeless before her case would be sped up....
She asked U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum's office to help expedite her case, but the Social Security Administration told the congresswoman's office in early March that Grooms didn't qualify....
As she faced a court eviction hearing in early April, Grooms cast her net wide, asking the Watchdog for help as well as notifying her members of Congress of her increasingly fragile situation. The Watchdog immediately contacted the Social Security Administration, asking the agency to take a fresh look at Grooms' case.
Within days, the Minneapolis Office of Disability and Adjudication Review flagged Grooms' appeal for expedition. Her hearing date was set for June 11.
No comments:
Post a Comment