Wait continues for Social Security Disability applicants: FOCUS: DELAYED BENEFITS ?It's going to be a lifelong battle to keep him out of trouble and keep him in school.? ? Karen Furman, speaking about her son, Kelvin

By Lindsey Mcpherson

May 21, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- Karen Furman's son, Kelvin, was 10 when she applied to get federal income assistance for parents with disabled children. Kelvin is now 14, living in a group home and still waiting for the government to decide if he's disabled.

The Buffalo Social Security hearing office, where Furman filed her claim, is so overwhelmed with cases that people wait an average of 669 days before a judge even hears their case.

In other words, not much has changed a year after The Buffalo News reported that people had to wait 688 days for an appeal hearing in Buffalo when they apply for Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability benefits.

"They want us to give up or die," said Linda Fullerton, founder of the Rochester-based Social Security Disability Coalition. "They're not taking the problem seriously enough."

The combined backlog of both types of cases is so extensive that some appeals are sent to judges in New York City. Some of those claimants travel nearly 400 miles to prove they are really disabled. Others plead their cases to the judges through video conferences from the Buffalo office with hearing officers in New York City.

And that means parents like Furman and disabled adults who can't work anymore often face unimaginable difficulties waiting for government help to come through as a lifeline.

Furman, a 36-year-old insurance broker from Buffalo, filed a claim to get security income on behalf of Kelvin, who has been diagnosed with three severe behavioral disorders.

He has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which makes it hard for him to concentrate, and oppositional defiant disorder, which causes him to defy all authority figures. In addition, Kelvin was diagnosed six months ago with bipolar disorder, which causes extreme mood swings.

"It's going to be a lifelong battle to keep him out of trouble and keep him in school," Furman said.

Kelvin's claim was denied because the Social Security Administration worker who reviewed his paperwork said he was not disabled -- and that is nothing unusual. The agency turns down two-thirds of its initial disability applications.

"They are rubber-stamping denials to get the paperwork off their desks," Fullerton said.

Furman said she has had to take a lot of unpaid time off work to help her son. She is hopeful the disability payments will cover the gap in her income that those days off have caused.

She eventually resorted to placing Kelvin in the care of professionals. Kelvin is living at Hopevale, a family service agency in Hamburg that aims to enhance children's "development as responsible members of family and society," the agency's Web site states.

A few weeks ago, Furman called the hearing office and discovered her son's case had been assigned to a judge in Brooklyn who will hear the case through video. She has since received a letter from the hearing office, setting the date for June 13.

But the problems don't necessarily end when the hearing does. The Social Security checks may finally come, but for many it is impossible to fix the financial problems they suffered while waiting the two or more years for the judge to decide their case.

The process -- and the delays -- are the same under SSI, which handles disability claims for children, and the SSDI program, which offers benefits to adults who can no longer work.

Fullerton used all of her savings while she waited for SSDI.

"This is permanent devastation," she said. "You never recover from this because you can't work anymore."

And the disabled people of Western New York have likely accumulated more debt than others who live in areas where the caseload is less severe, she added. The Buffalo office is ranked the 19th-worst office in the country based on the average wait time for cases to be heard.

The disability claims backlog has been a problem for years but has recently received serious attention from New York lawmakers.

In January, Rep. Brian Higgins introduced the Social Security Customer Service Improvement Act, which would provide Congress detailed information on the operation and staffing of Social Security offices throughout the country.

After the Social Security Administration released March data showing the enormous load of disability claims has not lightened in Buffalo, Higgins, D-Buffalo, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., sent letters to SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue, calling for an increase in administrative law judges.

Astrue testified in a House hearing on the issue last month and said the agency has directed new judges toward especially burdened offices because "there is a strong correlation between filings per administrative law judge and cases pending."

Each of the Buffalo district's 14 judges -- two serve from a satellite office in Rochester -- has an average of 895 cases pending. Still, Buffalo has received no appointees.

Astrue said there is insufficient available office space to hire more staff at the Buffalo hearing office, but Buffalo-area lawmakers begged to differ.

"If the problem is office space, I would be happy to find them available space in downtown Buffalo tomorrow," Higgins said.

Judge shortages are apparent in other parts of the country as well. Only 19 of the 143 offices have a wait time of less than a year.

In its most recent hiring spree, the Social Security Administration made 135 new appointments, 10 of which were sent to New York offices less burdened than Buffalo.

The agency is hiring more staff later this year to help fix the backlog in overwhelmed areas like Buffalo, Social Security spokeswoman Dorothy Clark said.

The agency's struggles are exacerbated by the fact more and more claims are pouring in with the rise of the baby boom generation in recent years, said Jim Allsup, chief executive and founder of Allsup, a company that represents people applying for Social Security disability benefits.

He said the long-talked-about Social Security crisis has already hit in the area of disability claims because "the average age of disability is a lot less than the average age of retirement."

Today there are 176 percent more disability cases than 10 years ago, Astrue testified.

Yet staffing at Western New York offices has decreased by approximately 170 employees over the past 25 years.

"You can't throw enough money at this thing to fix it because it's so massive," Allsup said.

citydesk@buffnews.com