Social Security Takes Forms to the Street

Jeannie, age 69, sits in a corner of the public restroom where she spends her days, perched on a garbage bag filled with her belongings.

Today her concern is her towel. “I wasted two hours this morning looking for that towel. I looked through that bag 10 times.”

“Did you look on the side? Sometimes things fall on the side and you can’t see it,” said Patricia Betch, kneeling on the concrete floor.

Betch, a Social Security field representative, has been trying for months to persuade the thin, white-haired woman to apply for benefits.

Jeannie changes the subject. She is worried about the dead bird she found while sleeping in the doorway of Broadway Market in the historic Fells Point district here.

“I think people leave their windows open a little bit. I think they fly into some people’s windows at night to sleep,” Jeannie said.

“That’s what you’d like to do, isn’t it Jeannie?” asked Kathy Lorenzo, a psychiatric worker with Health Care for the Homeless and Betch’s partner. “Why don’t you let me find you a room?”

Jeannie refuses politely.

Lorenzo and Betch leave and Jeannie shouts her thanks for the gifts she had said she did not need: peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches, shirts and a jacket.

“You have to work so hard with these people to win their trust. Jeannie is afraid she’s signing admission papers” to a mental hospital, Betch said.

The Social Security Administration has hit the streets here to seek out people living in alleys, restrooms and parks, under a directive to reach out to the homeless. It’s the only SSA office with such a program.

Lorenzo called Betch last spring to ask her to take an application from a homeless person who wouldn’t enter a building. The two became a team and make their rounds each Wednesday, distributing sandwiches, clothing and friendship.

“I decided to go out there because the need was so great. Something had to be done here,” Betch said, noting that 46% of Maryland’s estimated 4,220 homeless people live in Baltimore. Statewide, 2,200 beds in shelters and transitional housing are available.

“They’re really afraid to go into any building. They’ve been out on the street so long that that’s more relaxing to them,” Betch said of the people she visits.

Betch set up an advisory board of officials from 18 agencies, including shelters, soup kitchens, legal aid and the mayor’s office. She keeps office hours at the Baltimore Rescue Mission on Wednesday evenings so people can find her.

Mayor Kurt Schmoke wants a state worker to accompany Lorenzo and Betch; many people who aren’t eligible for Social Security will qualify for welfare assistance.

If Lorenzo can persuade the homeless to visit her clinic and a psychiatrist judges them unable to hold a job for at least a year, they qualify for $368 in Supplemental Security Income and medical care. Conditions that are covered include alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction and physical disabilities.

“It’s hard to prove a disability if you have no medical records,” Betch said. “I’m not a (medical) professional but I can tell they’re sick.”

Many are old enough to get Social Security retirement benefits with only proof of age and an address--but many refuse to apply.

Since April, Betch has persuaded nine people to apply for benefits, a score she considers good. “They’ll take a sandwich from you. They’ll bid you good day, but until they know you . . . they have to want to file.”

Six of the nine were turned down and must reapply, she said.

Walter, 62, is one of those Betch is trying to help. A gentle man with bright brown eyes, he qualifies for retirement benefits but won’t leave a square-block area near the Baltimore Rescue Mission and the park where he and about 10 other men spend the days on benches.

Since they began making their rounds in April, Betch said, some shelters and soup kitchens have agreed to serve as mailing addresses for applicants. (Many agencies don’t want to attract hoodlums and addicts who prey on Social Security recipients, so they won’t allow checks to be mailed there. With an address, a homeless person can receive benefits and open a direct-deposit account at a bank.)

As they part for the day, Lorenzo is plotting where she can find Jeannie a room for the winter. Betch says that a congressional aide has Jeannie’s power of attorney; maybe the aide can sign the application form.

“I’d hate to find her frozen to death,” Lorenzo said. “When you’re out on the street, that’s your last bid. You either go up or you die.”