People with Disabilities are Not Perpetual Children
Three social media posts caught my eye, this past week. The first was an article about opposition to the decision of a café that employs...
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Why Work Is Important on Multiple Fronts
Last week, my sons’ summer program was not in session. While I enjoyed spending time with my boys—among other things like re-learning how...
Why You Want to Apply for Every Benefit for Which You May Be Eligible
With very little public areas of any kind open in Illinois, besides our many delightful forest preserves, my son and his summer program...
Study Your Vision to See What You Need to Actualize It
Because my son’s summer program is so small, it is (thankfully) in regular session, despite the fact that Illinois is only partially...
When Life Planning Seems a Tangle of Competing Priorities
A couple of weeks ago, I took my son and a friend of his to a local forest preserve—that being one of the few things open during the...
Saying Something, Even When It's Not Enough
My son was about to have his first in-person, life parkour practice in months. There would be only 10 kids. They would work out in the...
Innovative Options for Housing, Community and Support
My son needs a lot of coaching to complete a project, assigned to him by someone else—say a teacher. But he has 150% focus and puts in...
How Medicaid Waivers Can Pay for Daily Life Supports
A listserve on which I participate featured a recent exchange among some parents of adults with intellectual and developmental...
ESG Investing: Can You Do Well While Doing Good?
“They say you cannot have your cake and eat it too…but ain’t that what ya supposed to do?” (Anonymous) A number of my clients with...
Expect the Unexpected
My family and I have started raising “backyard” chickens. We put a lot of thought into this project because the village has restrictions...
Why You Should Not Rely on Social Security Alone
The Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Board of Trustees has released its annual financial analysis report. The trust fund that...
How to Get Medicaid When You Think You Have Too Much Income
At first glance, you may think that you (if you have a disability) do not or your family member who has a disability, does not qualify...
Develop a Special Needs Plan That Can Weather Storms
Two days ago, I looked out my windows on snow and at a thermometer reading of 28°F. Less than two weeks ago, it was so summer-like hot,...
Economic Impact Payments will come to SSI recipients automatically
Advocates have succeeded. The Social Security Administration and the Treasury De- partment have have found a way to deliver the economic...
The Only Constant is Change
The only constant in life is change,” is attributed to Heraclitus (540-480 BCE). Having changed our ways of working, school, shopping and...
How Your Social Security Benefits and Your Tax Filing Status May Affect Your Economic Impact Payment
My son’s favorite subjects are math and science. His is preferred mode of learning is activity. His least-preferred mode of learning is...
Making Your Disability Case to Social Security
My son goes to a tiny Montessori school that offers schooling to the equivalent of pre-K through 12th grade and that has been doing an...
How to Manage Social Security While Social Distancing
When businesses and organizations started reducing hours and services in response to the COVID-19 situation, I like many of you started...
Let the IRS help you pay for post-secondary education
This past week, I came to talk to a group of high school students with disabilities about Social Security, Medicaid,and Medicare Work...
Good News and Bad News for Actors with Disabilities
My son occasionally prefaces disclosures with: “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?” His dad and I...