StickToItiveness

New Representative Payee client, Cathy, lives in an assisted living community and struggles with severe dementia. Representative Payee director, Jessica Strecker (pictured), quickly discovered that Cathy was more than $30,000 behind in payments to her assisted living community. After a little detective work, Jessica found that many Social Security payments that Cathy should have received for living expenses were unaccounted for. Because of her dementia, Cathy could not remember the bank that received her Social Security checks or any identifying information that banks require before disclosing information regarding individual accounts.
Jessica reached out to Social Security and found the funds were being deposited to a Direct Express account. “Direct Express would not work with me because I was not on this client’s account; they were no help at all,” said Jessica. She persisted and uncovered a way for Direct Express to return the funds to the SSA. After a lengthy and complicated process, Rep Payee received a deposit for $17, 328 of Cathy’s recovered funds!
In just two months, Jessica solved a mystery that had puzzled Cathy’s facility case worker for years. While Cathy does not understand or remember Jessica’s efforts to help her, she is now well on her way to settling her debt and has her financial management in good hands.