Press release: Taking on the SSA

 

Mariah Carey’s estranged sister fights with the Social Security Administration over “mistaken” cut in disability benefits 

Alison Carey wants to know why the the Social Security Administration ignored  her repeated letters telling them that she lives in an apartment - not in a nursing home

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Nov. 12, 2021

   HUDSON,  N.Y. — A Greene County women disabled by a devastating brain injury has been left with just $30 a month in benefit payments after the Social Security Administration incorrectly listed her as living in a nursing home and ignored her repeated letters telling the agency about the error.

   Sixty-year-old Alison Carey - who is the older estranged sister of pop diva Mariah Carey - was homeless for 14 moths before moving into an apartment in a town near Albany, N.Y. in April. Before the move, Carey had been in a Columbia County nursing home for physical rehab following a hospitalization. Just before she left the home Medicaid approved her to become a permanent resident.

   But Alison was not ready to give up some measure of independence and when an apartment suitable for her limitations was found she decided that with help she could live on her own for a few more years.

   And that’s when the problem began; In a letter dated July 20 the SSA said that because Alison was in a medical facility for which Medicaid was paying at least half the fees, her monthly benefit would be reduced to $30 a month. The letter stated - wrongly - that  Alison was a resident of a medical facility for all of April, May, June and July, but because she had received her full benefit amount for those months, the overpayment would have to be repaid by reducing her benefit from $841 a month to $30.

  And that benefit amount, it said, would continue “from August  on.”

  But Alison was not in the nursing home. In a letter to the SSA’s Hudson office dated August 3, Carey wrote that she left the home and moved into her apartment on May 1. 

   Alison says she received no response to her letter, and that the filing of a form appealing the cut - which under the agency’s rules should have stopped the reduced benefit until the appeal was decided - also produced no response; the payment for August was $30.

  On October 1 - after the September and October payments were also $30 - Alison sent a copy of her August 3 letter to the SSA via Certified Mail. Again, she received no response.

   In mid October, Alison contacted the office of U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer. A member of the senator’s staff contacted the SSA and the agency finally called Alison, describing the detailed proof it would need to begin investigating Alison’s statement that she was living in an apartment. But she could not explain why Alison’s letters had been ignored for three months. In the meantime, the Schumer staffer had, at Alison’s request and citing the long delay in responding to her August letter, asked the SSA to make at least one month’s payment while the question about her residency was investigated.

    No payment had been received by Nov. 11 and the staffer has not responded to an email asking about the agency’s response to the request. The delay has so far left Alison out $2,378 in withheld benefits. 

    Alison has been estranged from her multimillionaire sister for about two decades.  In September 2020 the singer made headlines around the world when she revealed that her about-to-be-published memoir would say that when she was 12 years old the then 20-year-old Alison drugged her with Valium and offered her cocaine - claims Alison denies.

   In February, Alison filed a legal notice of her intention to file a lawsuit against Mariah Carey.  A month later the sisters’ brother, Morgan Carey, filed his own lawsuit over statements about him in the book. 

   In addition to multiple health issues - in the spring Alison had emergency overnight surgery for a life-threatening perforated stomach ulcer - she also has been struggling for several months without teeth after her dentures were broken in a fall. Medicaid won’t pay for a replacement until 2026.  In October, a GoFundMe page was set up, seeking donations for the $2,500 needed for new dentures.

  It’s at: https://gofund.me/f561ad7a