Hello Reddit. I would really appreciate any information you can provide to help me manage a difficult situation. Suffice it to say that my father is a really horrible person, has hurt everyone around him including me, and all I am trying to do is help him stay afloat while minimizing contact with him.
BACKGROUND: (this can be skipped but I'm trying to explain what a crazy/reckless/willful/destructive person this man is even at 71 years old)
Just to give you a flavor so you understand how difficult it is to help/control him, my husband and I bought a house for him and pay the property taxes. He's been there 6 years. A few of the things he's done while there. (1) Cut out a window of the house because he wanted to enlarge it with a custom window. Then proceed to ask for what ended up being about $1000 for "parts" to build and add a new window. For 3 years there was a whole in the house he kept covered with a tarp during winters. Winters in the Poconos are pretty cold. (2) Although he has no money, he somehow accumulates massive amounts of junk (wood he bought and then left to rot in the rain, old machinery he gets I don't know where, old clothing he gets I don't know where) and then we have twice given him more than $500 for "garbage removal" (in addition to paying for the normal weekly garbage services). When he asked a third time we refused. So basically he does all sorts of money intensive and property destroying things without asking us and despite numerous protests/requests etc to just not freaking make house-altering actions. So this is to give you a flavor of how he doesn't listen but just shakes us down for money. We bought him the house and pay the property tax and otherwise try not to do anything except if he contacts in a dire emergency. This is because when we first started helping him out we did things like pay the electric which he abused (running electric heat instead of using the wood burning stove despite us buying wood...which he left to rot), running the electric heat while leaving the door and window open to get some air, running an AC in the summer even though it's only 70 degrees outside. We also initially gave him a credit card (he abused this running up hundreds of dollars a month at Home Depot for no clear purpose) and then some cash (he kept doing home-destroying things so we stopped giving him money so as not to enable this). So we have tried any way we could to help him not have emergencies and it doesn't work. Oh we have also bought him 2 cars which he complains about as in they're not good enough yadda yadda yadda.
Bottom line: At 36 years old I have spent almost half my life contributing to this man's support and I have really had it emotionally and financially. I really want to have nothing to do with him and want to make sure he is getting as much as he can from the government. I pay lots of taxes and I feel totally strung out and like I can't do this anymore and like I have pulled more than my fair weight for this problem and now society should step it up a bit more. Want to see how to lessen contact even more and make sure he is accessing all government benefits possible.
END BACKGROUND:
Here's where he's at. He gets $660 a month in social security net (I saw on the statement $50 is garnished to pay my mother back child support and $134 is"SMI Premium" <- what is this?). I initially helped him apply for food stamps and home heating assistance with the help of a social worker. He claims these have been cut over the years, so I don't have details as to what he is receiving and whether he is doing all the applications he can for relevant benefits. He lives in a house we own and we pay the property tax so he has no costs associated with rent.
He claims he has the following monthly expenses, but doesn't provide proof:
$147 auto insurance (doesn't this seem high? my auto insurance is about $600/year in NYC)
$61 internet (this also seems high to me....I wonder if he is buying more than the bare minimum)
$40 cell phone (ditto...seems like he could get by on a lower plan...and this is in addition to the free cell phone he got from the federal government via some program unless he doesn't have it anymore...but he certainly did in the past)
$120 gas money (this seems like a lot for gas each month. he can't work due to a criminal record...so there is nowhere he really has to go...and $120 seems like several hundred miles worth of driving each month...whereas he lives 6 miles from town so even to socialize he doesn't need to drive that far....)
$200 food and pocket money as he describes (he occasionally asks us to order pet food for him which we do because we don't want his numerous cats and 1 dog to starve...I know food is expensive but I definitely have gotten by on less than this per month just a few years ago when I was watching my own expenses so this also seems high relative to his income)
$100 electric bill for the month of August. For reference all appliances run off electricity (water, oven, etc), but to me this still seems high for a month with lots of daylight hours. I'm just sort of like wtf is he doing to run up that kind of electric bill.
$133 / month medicare supplement (well it's technically $514 per quarter)
So a few concrete questions:
(1) Does someone who only has around $660 monthly income at age 71 really have to purchase a $500/quarter ($2000/year!?!?!) medicare supplement when he is clearly living below the poverty line? My father is a classic narcissist so I can imagine he bought himself something fancy rather than take the government entitlement.
(2) Reality check for gas and electric monthly expenses in NE PA. Am I being too harsh or is he spending way too much relative to what is really necessary? I am not interested in telling him never to leave his house and to drive nowhere, but seems like even if he drove to town everyday there's no reason to be spending $120/month on gas (he has a regular V4 sedan, some Japanese car which should have reasonable gas mileage)
(3) Auto insurance of $147/month?!?! seriously?!?! what am I missing?
(4) Any advice on how to deal with this kind of intractable relative? How can I get the government more involved? I don't think the details of my abused childhood are interesting, but it takes an emotional toll on me that is really heavy every time I have to interact with him and I feel like I want to vomit every time I give him money. I'd like to minimize this for my own well being. I feel I have done more than what I owe this person and yet when I get a midnight text that he will die and needs a certain medication or has run out of food etc and I need to act I can't quite bring myself to do nothing.
(5) What is the SMI Premium of $134/month? I just don't get it. If my father is below the poverty line is it really necessary that he pay $134 * 12 + $500 * 2 = $3600 a year when his income (not even counting net just total social security of $844) is only around $10,000 per year?!?! I know the US is shitty for benefits, but is it this shitty or is he choosing to make the situation worse? How is he not eligible for medicaid for example?!?! (I know nothing about public assistance and need to know how to get educated about this).
Thanks Reddit and I apologize if this is not the place to post. I will gladly edit/add details if asked. Please give me any helpful advice you can!
Submitted September 26, 2018 at 10:28AM by regggiethrowaway https://ift.tt/2Ijc1wk
