Part two of SSDI backlog: another side of the story

Regular readers know that we shared the first half of a story about the SSDI backlog that has gotten so much attention in the press lately. We are going to pick up this story again; a tale that revolves around a locksmith who lost his job due to a back injury that diminished his productivity. He found himself out of work, disabled by his back pain and forced to apply for Social Security Disability benefits.

But the approval process was slow. The savings he and his wife had put together were eaten up while she continued trying to keep her new hair-styling business afloat and he waited and waited to hear about his SSDI claim.

“My wife and I began selling our things,” he wrote. Their car and his motorcycle went first and then their furniture and his wife’s clothes. A hobby collection, “kitchen appliances and everything else we could think of to put up for sale went, too.”

By February of last year, the couple became homeless and moved in with her parents. Medical expenses and prescription costs continued to pour in.

Late last summer, the former locksmith and his wife finally got word that he had qualified for SSDI. “The relief of receiving the disability assistance I’m entitled to was enormous,” he wrote.

They are slowly rebuilding their lives now, he adds. If the SSA had approved his claim in a timelier manner, they could have saved their house and “never would have lost everything we had built over our 21 years of marriage.”

In many situations, an SSDI appeal means just about everything. That is why so many Charlotte residents rely on the knowledge of an experienced attorney who understands the appeals process and the paperwork vital to approval.