More About Payee Services
A representative payee is an individual or an organization designated to receive income on a client’s behalf. The payee then helps the service recipient budget money and disburses the funds to pay for current needs including housing and utilities, food, medical expenses, etc. A minimal monthly fee is collected from each client to help defray costs and to increase participant program commitment. We are the only organization providing this service in the state of Oklahoma.
We provide services to individuals who are homeless, have a mental illness, physical disability, intellectual disability, young adults who have aged out of the foster care system, seniors with dementia, recently released offenders, and so on.
Our case managers pay all bills including rent, utilities, phone and budget for medical needs, food, transportation, and so on. Serving as the representative payee for our clients is not a one year fix. The majority of our clients will need our services indefinitely due to their disability or life circumstances.
Those who can be moved to self sufficiency will learn to manage their own finances while they are part of the Payee Services Program by learning budgeting techniques during regular meetings with their Payee Services Case Manager. We find this is a small percentage of our clients.
Each Payee Services Case Manager is able to have a case load of up to a maximum of 90 individuals. We are able to serve so many people because we have such a narrow financial focus. We do, however, maintain a close relationship with each service recipients’ housing and mental health case manager support team, to ensure their outside needs are taken care of. Take Yvonee’s case for example:
Jackie had been homeless for much of her life. She was referred to Family and Children’s Services for mental health services. Her case manager at Family and Children’s
Services referred Jackie to the Mental Health Association’s Safe Haven at the downtown YMCA. This provided her with the structured environment she needed to maintain her medication regimen. Jackie had recently been approved for Social Security Disability benefits due to her bipolar disorder and was required by the Social Security Administration to have a representative payee before she could receive any of her benefits. After staying at Safe Haven and learning to manage herself in a social environment she was ready to move into her own apartment. With the assistance of Volunteers of America of Oklahoma's Payee Services Program and the Mental Health Association, Jackie was able to secure a Section 8 apartment through the Tulsa Housing Authority.
She has now been living successfully in her own apartment for over a year and the VOAOK Payee Services Program continues to work with her to revise her budget. Jackie is so proud to have a place she can call home and we are proud of her as well. She is a great example of how the VOAOK Payee Services Program and other agencies in the Tulsa community work together to best assist our service recipients.
Many of our Payee Services clients are like Jackie, presenting a myriad of challenges including physical and mental disability, estranged from friends and family, poor rental history, incarceration, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol use, and a lack of formal education.