Having a child with disabilities can be life altering.

It was for Valerie Smith.

Her son was born with Spina Bifida.

A portion of his spinal cord was exposed.

When I had corteze, I I said Lord, if you allow Cortez to live, I'll do whatever I have to do to help him to live,

you know, to take care of him and to help him to live, you know, to take care of him and to help him to live.

Doctors were not optimistic about Cortez pulling through.

The baby stayed in the neonatal ICU for a month.

And he lived. the neonatal ICU for a month.

And he lived.

And they were saying that he wasn't even supposed to live as long as he's living now.

For 29 years, Smith has been her son's caregiver, seven days a week, and she's had help from a government

program run by Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, or SSI. Smith receives a monthly SSI check she uses for food and

medical supplies and rent on a first floor subsidized townhouse in Baltimore

with a ramp for her son's wheelchair.

SSI made her son eligible for Medicaid and it allowed her to care for him at home.

More than 7 million people receive SSI benefits. It should be one of the nation's most successful

anti-poverty programs. But an NPR investigation found that it is full of problems like outdated eligibility rules.

Deborah Wagner, a lawyer at Cornell University's Institute on Employment and Disability Studies SSI.

I would say the only thing that's true about that name is it's supplemental.

People who live on SSI are not living a secure existence.

In order to qualify for SSI, an individual can't have more than $2,000 in cash or other assets.

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