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| Congresswoman talking with people in line to enter SSA office |
Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham is asking the head of the Social Security Administration to suspend a move of an office to a downtown Albuquerque call center. ...
The second-term member of Congress described people waiting outside with “no shade, no chairs, no benches, no anything.” She expressed concern that a move to the downtown call center would exacerbate these and other problems. ...
“The primary reason for our move is to provide an improved experience for our customers in the Albuquerque area,” Regional Communications Director of the SSA Dallas office Sarah Schultz-Lackey said in a statement provided to New Mexico Political Report Tuesday evening. “The new office will allow us to offer streamlined customer service with more interviewing windows at the front of the office.”
“We will have a larger lobby in this new space with increased seating,” the statement continued.
Lujan Grisham says that there is not suitable parking for those seeking help from the Social Security Administration and the parking that is available is not free.
“Given that SSA refuses to validate visitor parking, your planned move will impose new expenses on many people who live at or near the poverty line,” she wrote.
Another parking issue Lujan Grisham identified is the lack of parking for disabled individuals. She wrote that there is no such parking in a two-block radius and “there is no disable drop-off zone next to the building.” ...
3 comments:
I have been in that area on weekdays and saw available parking. There was some parking on the street that was free, some metered, and lots of open parking for $1 and $2.50.
This is a national problem and congress is as responsible as SSA.
I have been in close to 40 states representing claimants and can attest to the fact that ODAR offices are just as bad if not worse than this FO scenario. Many have little or no parking, or require paid parking in private lots. Many ODAR waiting rooms are cramped and do not allow sufficient privacy for claimants to speak with representatives. ODAR guards can be rude. This occurs far too often in field offices ( the scenario Grisham identified). I talk to guards who consider Field Office duty the bottom of the barrel. If SSA assigned more staff, if congress met the need for more staff it would go a long way to alleviating the humiliating experience claimants experience when interacting with SSA. Grisham should be applauded for her outrage. Now perhaps she can share it with her congressional cohorts who have repeatedly underfunded SSA.
This Congresswoman is to be applauded for standing up for her constituents. She was polite to SSA but refused to believe their BS responses, and demanded do-able action. We need more folks in Congress who do this!
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