The Supplemental Security Income program, a hard-to-get federal benefit, was created nearly 50 years ago to lift out of poverty Americans who are older, blind, or disabled. Instead, it has left many homeless.
After two months of sleeping in the Salvation Army Center of Hope homeless shelter, Margaret Davis has had no luck finding an apartment she can afford.
Davis’ job options are limited because she gets dialysis treatment three times a week for kidney failure. As she prepared to spend another night in the crowded shelter, she checked her phone to see whether a doctor wanted her to have her left leg amputated. “We are trapping people in a place where dignity is out of reach,” said Rebecca Vallas, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank that conducts research on economic equity. “The program started with good intentions,” she said. “It is hard for me to see this as anything but willful neglect.”lives with some type of disability, supplemental income is meant to ensure that the most vulnerable can get housing and other basic needs.