Strain at field offices
On Tuesday afternoon, a 65-year-old Windsor resident visited the Social Security office on Range Avenue, near Coddingtown mall in Santa Rosa. The resident, who asked that her name not be used to preserve her privacy, went to the site to obtain paperwork for reenrolling in Social Security Disability insurance.
She said she had already filled out and dropped off the paper at the office last week. But during a phone appointment Tuesday, a Social Security worker told her her paperwork could not be located and she that had to come into the office to fill out another application.
When she arrived at the office about 3 p.m., a security guard told her the wait would be about two hours. Outside, a sandwich board sign indicated, in red marker, wait times of “60+” minutes.
“They mostly they do a good job,” the Windsor resident said. “I just don’t understand how someone could lose someone’s paperwork.”
The elimination of phone services for many transactions didn’t concern her as much as the need to improve in-person visits.
“They just need more people, that’s what I think,” she said.
Austin said such experiences are not uncommon.
“For some people, these delays and mistakes aren’t just an inconvenience — they’re devastating,” Austin said. “I’ve seen people break down in tears because they don’t know how they’ll pay rent or buy food while waiting for benefits.”
Austin, who works with residents in Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Solano, Mendocino and Lake counties, said federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid have serious problems communicating with clients in a timely fashion.
“The letters people get are so confusing or they’re late,” she said.
If the pending changes “add to an already slow process,” she added, “there will likely be more backlog and longer wait times. People trying to claim benefits, appeal decisions or just get help may experience even more frustrations.”
Tooling with a ‘hot stove’
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, in a Thursday interview, warned that Americans “should be worried about the future of the Social Security Administration,” echoing a call his party sounded in the presidential campaign last year and in the months since Donald Trump has been back in the White House.
Hard-line Republicans have “never stopped attacking it since the 1930s,” he said, but more recent efforts have backfired.
“People from George W. Bush to some of the colleagues I served with have touched the hot stove and realized just how popular and essential this earned benefit program is — and they backed away,” Huffman said.
But he said the current administration, with allies in right-wing policy world and in Congress, is much more serious about its efforts, which he described as a “two-step” process.
“They’re first going to hollow out the Social Security Administration with staffing cuts and office closures, and then point to all the problems they’ve created as a justification for something like privatization,” he said.
Currently, most of the offices slated for closure, under a list of leases provided to the General Services Administration, are small, remote hearing sites located near a Social Security office or other federal space, according to the Social Security Administration.
The agency said other agency leases provided to GSA are “nonpublic facing” locations that are being consolidated into nearby facilities or had already been slated for closure.
Readers weigh in
The Press Democrat recently polled online readers about the proposed changes to Social Security identify verification. Of nearly four dozen responses, 28 readers said they either opposed the policy changes or had concerns. Some 13 said they thought it was a good idea.