Nearly escaping death...optimism at it’s finest

One of my roles as a social worker at the Salvation Army is to help disabled individuals apply for SSI benefits through the Social Security Administration. I have worked with many individuals in the past year, but there is one client that stands out as one of my greatest successes. For this blog, we will call him Joe*. Joe used to be a very hard working person before his accident in 1983. He was walking down a street and was a victim of a bus accident. One tire on the bus exploded, and as a result, the hubcap flew off toward Joe’s head. He moved his head slightly and it barely missed him. The incident gave him four broken limbs to deal with and a life long memory of almost being decapitated. Joe recovered from the accident but still stuffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In 2006 Joe was crossing a street in downtown Minneapolis, and a delivery truck drove through a red light and hit him. He suffered fractures to both of his arms and both of his legs. In addition to this, Joe was homeless for a short period of time staying at The Salvation Army’s Harbor Light shelter. He then got into supportive housing and has been housed for almost 2 years successfully paying his rent on time each month.


We first applied for SSI benefits in August 2008. In December 2008, he was denied for two old warrants that he hadn’t known about. He turned himself into the jail and appeared in court and both were resolved. After visiting his parents in Arizona for several weeks, he came back to Minnesota and was ready for round two with Social Security. The second time we applied was in April 2009. The interview went fairly quickly since Joe had just applied several months prior. After the long wait, Joe was finally approved for SSI benefits in July 2009. He is still living in his apartment in downtown Minneapolis and loves to ride his bike and visit the local YMCA. He has been helping his daughter with school bills now that he has a little more money to live off of. He may have to have a complete knee replacement in the coming months, but he is optimistic about the outcome.

I joke with his case manager that Joe is the perfect picture of “Murphy’s Law” (anything that can go wrong will go wrong). Despite this, Joe still has a very optimistic outlook on life and attempts to live positively each day. Though his surgeries have now grown to double digits (I believe it’s up to around 13?) and he is on a handful of medications, he has made a success out of his life.

*This name has been chosen to protect anonymity. This is not the client’s real name.