FAQ

Dictionary of Occupational Titles: https://occupationalinfo.org/

SSI has a monthly federal benefit rate that changes each year plus any available state supplement. You can find the current benefit amounts on our SSA Annual Updates page.

The Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program is administered by the Center for Mental Health Services, a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). PATH is a formula grant to the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are nearly 600 local organizations that provide PATH services. PATH provides services to people with serious mental illness, including those with co-occurring substance use disorders, who are experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of becoming homeless.

PATH and SOAR programs directly complement each other’s work and nearly half of the SOAR State Team Leads are also the State PATH Contacts. The PATH program’s objective to connect individuals to mental health services and stable housing is more easily accomplished when people who are homeless have access to the income and health insurance that comes with Social Security benefits. SOAR provides PATH case managers the tools necessary to expedite access to these benefits, resulting in improved housing and treatment outcomes.

Read more: PATH and SOAR Overview

Great question! Check out our most up-to-date National Outcomes to see how SOAR-assisted applications compare to those without SOAR assistance.

In order to address the question of whether an applicant is capable of returning to work performed within the past 15 years, the ALJ will generally call a VE to testify. The VE is usually a licensed professional counselor, a vocational rehabilitation specialist, or another professional whose career has involved job placement, career counseling and working with people with disabilities. Although the VE is called by the ALJ, the VE is neither a government nor an applicant’s witness. The VE’s task is to offer a neutral opinion based on (1) the evidence and (2) the ALJ’s determinations as to the applicant’s functional limitations. The VE reviews the documents in the file which pertain to work, e.g. detailed earnings record, disability report, and work history report.  The ALJ will create a hypothetical for the purpose of eliciting the VE’s opinion on the applicant’s capacity to return to past work (Step 4) or perform other work in the national economy (Step 5). For more information on cross examining the VE, please contact Pam Heine at the SOAR TA Center, pheine@prainc.com.  Read more here: https://www.ssa.gov/OP_Home/hallex/I-02/I-2-6-74.html.

For the second question, the job must exist in significant numbers in either the national or local economy, where the applicant lives. Read more at https://www.ssa.gov/appeals/public_experts/Vocational_Experts_(VE)_Handbook-508.pdf.

Please see our suggestions from the field on our COVID-19 resources page: /article/covid-19-resources-soar-providers

If a person is guarded when you are interviewing them for the MSR, you can explain to them the importance of you gathering this information and providing it to Social Security as part of the SSI/SSDI application process. If they still don't want to provide you information then you can document in the MSR the person's guarded nature, their behavior and symptoms you observe, and document that you believe it to be due to the symptoms of their mental illness (paranoia, delusions, suspiciousness, etc.). You can try to obtain the information you need for the MSR from the person's medical records and if they are willing to sign ROIs, you can attempt to interview collateral sources such as family, friends, case managers, etc. to obtain information to include in the MSR. 

If the individual doesn’t have a residential address, you can answer “No.” You will be asked for some demographic information and then you can continue the account creation process.

Our "Creating a my Social Security Account for Applicants Flowchart" may also be helpful. That can be found on our SOAR Tools & Worksheets page.

Note that when you are assisting someone to apply for SSI/SSDI, you can use your agency address for their mailing address, but this shouldn’t be needed for the purposes of creating a my Social Security account.

The SSA-4814 is only necessary for individuals who are alleging HIV infection. It is the Medical Report on Adult With Allegation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection.

In Q58 on the SSA 8000, SSA is trying to determine whether a SNAP application is needed. If the family is receiving SNAP benefits you would mark YES here. That way, SSA will know that a new application does not need to be completed.