Financial frustration

COEUR d'ALENE — About 200 Social Security recipients have been struggling to straighten out their finances since Community Access Payee Services suddenly closed its doors late last month.

"I had to dig up papers and prove I’ve been here for five years," said Mary Stancow of Coeur d'Alene. "The waiting room was packed. I went to Social Security and waited an hour and they got me in, but the whole room was full of women and children ... All those poor people. It was in the beginning of February and they couldn't pay their rent."

Stancow is one of the Social Security recipients who is still waiting to know exactly what happened to CAPS and some of the money she had in an account with CAPS before it closed.

CAPS, a financial services company that provided money management assistance to Social Security recipients, gave no or little warning about its impending last day. The swift closure and lack of information transfer protocol has raised some eyebrows.

"They just basically locked the door, taped up the windows and turned out the lights," said Stancow's boyfriend, Ed Pankow of Coeur d'Alene. "My intuition tells me that there’s something wrong here, particularly when they told me that CAPS never sent any of the files."

Goodwill Industries, which was tapped by the Social Security Administration to serve as payee in CAPS' stead, has been scrambling to keep up with the needs of the new caseload. The situation has caused a delay in the transfer of funds to Goodwill, which has placed stress on those who rely on these funds to pay rent, buy groceries, etc.

"Last Friday I was crying, we were so hungry and I couldn’t get my stupid check," Stancow said. "I just thought, 'This is terrible.'"

Heather Alexander, Goodwill's director of marketing and fund development, said Goodwill was supposed to receive the funds by Feb. 1, but they arrived late. She said she was told that Goodwill has most of the funds now, but it is possible more people, like Stancow, are still waiting for all of the money that should have been in their accounts.

"We’ve been working with them to get those funds out," she said. "We have most of the funds now and the Social Security Administration has assured us that we will have all the March disbursements."

Alexander said she doesn't know why CAPS closed so quickly or why a delay occurred in getting the funds moved around, but extra Goodwill staff has been pulled in from other offices to help with the situation.

"It didn't happen as smoothly as it should have," she said. "We don't have any information about why they closed or how the transfer of paperwork went."

The Idaho Secretary of State lists Janet E. Cutino of Rathdrum as the manager of Community Access Payee Services, LLC. A call to a phone number listed under Cutino's name revealed the line is disconnected. The line to the CAPS location in Coeur d'Alene has also been disconnected.