Central FL Social Security office is not user friendly for disabled, elderly.

[madfloridian]

And no one agency seems to take responsibility.

The Social Security offices are now geared to doing business on the telephone or online. If you get an efficient caring person working on your case, most goes well. You don't call them, they call you during the process.

There are just some things that can not be done by phone or online. They have cut resources until the elderly and disabled must wait outside in the weather with no restroom access, no access to water, until it is their time to go in.

Elderly, disabled queue up outside for Social Security services in Lakeland

Some mornings the lines outside the Lakeland office of the Social Security Administration start forming as early as 6:30. The office doesn't open until 9 a.m. but word has spread among elderly and disabled residents that those first in line have a shorter wait.

So over the next few hours they quietly queue up, among them on a recent day an elderly woman sitting in a wheelchair, a woman leaning on a walker, and a young woman toting an infant in a carrier. An older man with a walker leans his back against the building and grimaces.

There are no benches, no water fountains. Until the doors are unlocked at 9 a.m., there is no access to restrooms. And even then, no signs explain to those in the line outside that they can ask the guard's permission for restroom access. Some days, the guard announces no food or drink are allowed inside "so if you have anything with you, you might as well go put it back in your car."

The elderly and disabled people standing in line are feeling the ramifications of changes in government policies and of no agency taking responsibility to improve the conditions.

This is a long article, but a couple of things really stood out to me.

The Social Security data shows a wait time at that office of only 34 minutes. But that is after the person is inside, signed in, and seated.

On one day a person went up to the guard outside the door, told him she only needed paperwork, could she just get that. The guard told her to call the number on the door. She told him she had tried that, it didn't work, he told her she had to wait.

This part about one woman, age 61, who did not have a computer at home...really upset me.

Ocho, who has multiple complications from diabetes, had arrived at 8 a.m., mistakenly thinking that's when the doors were unlocked. She had been No. 12 in line, but had to leave and find a restroom, she said. When she returned, shortly before 9 a.m., she found about 45 people were ahead of her.

The director of the Social Security Administration's office in Atlanta said that when the lease was up in 2018 they would evaluate the situation further.

We fought very hard to keep our own party from cutting Social Security payments, but we never realized all the cuts they were making to services and availability.

[Fumesucker]

1. SS made a huge screwup on my account recently

I got a letter from the SS administration that had my SS # and someone else's SS # on it also. There were some other oddities as well, I took it to my local office and they were mystified by the whole thing but they were alarmed about the other SS # being on it.

[csziggy]

2. My Mom has to deal with that office but does not attempt to go in

Actually my sister does it for Mom. After Dad died she tried to call to get his death benefit and to transfer Dad's Social Security payments to Mom. Total Nightmare!

First she had to call until she could get through - a trial since it was nearly always busy and often the hold time after negotiating the voice menu was extremely long. Once she got through, she had to make an appointment for a Social Security agent to call back. That was hard for my sister since she doesn't live with Mom and she had to try to set it up when she could be there.

Then at the appointed times she had to wait for calls that sometimes did not come. So she had to start the whole process over again.

I'm not sure if my sister ever got the death benefit at all - there is a limited time to apply for it and she had been trying for months to get it done with no success.

Mom can't deal with this king of thing. Her Alzheimers got much worse after Dad died and she would not be able to remember to call back or if she got a call she wouldn't remember what needed to be done.

[madfloridian]

3. I hate to see this country cut services for elderly and disabled.

There's no excuse except the mean spirit that seems to be prevailing in our nation now.

[csziggy]

4. Yeah and it's ridiculous to tell a 94 year old woman to stand in line

As one of the agents told my sister she would have to do on the first call when she finally got a human on the phone. This was a week after my Dad's funeral, to an old woman with heart problems and memory issues.

My sister laid into the SS agent and was finally told everything could be handled on the phone or by correspondence. Unfortunately it dragged on and on and on. As I said, I am not sure if everything ever got taken care of. The last time my sister and I talked about it I recommended that she contact our Senator's office and see if he could help.

On the other hand when my husband applied for SS it took one online session and the agent called us. After that it was all taken care of. But my sister and my Mom do not want to do anything online so that is part of the problem. The system is moving to be completely online - which is great for those who are computer literate and willing to put their information over the internet.

[madfloridian]

5. It's a way of saving money at the expense of those unable to fight back effectively.

It angers me because some are just unable to use computers. And those phone sessions....often takes time to get through.