Homeless woman who insisted she was owed £76,000 is finally proven right

After 16 years of insisting she was owed $100,000 by the government, a homeless woman has finally been proven right.

Wanda Witter has spent more than a dozen years on the streets while trying to convince people she was due the mammoth social security cheque.
She would sleep near a McDonald’s in downtown Washington DC with three suitcases of documents, trying to contact the government and, eventually, telling anybody that would listen about her situation.

‘They kept thinking I was crazy, telling me to get rid of the suitcases,’ she told the Washington Post.

But her Kafkaesque battle with Washington’s seemingly-impenetrable bureaucracy has finally come to an end, after social worker Julie Turner patiently waded through her documents for her.
Homeless woman who insisted she was owed $100,000 proven right after 16 years

Witter slept with three suitcases of documents with her (Picture: AP)
‘She had all the paperwork there, neatly organised, in order,’ Turner, 56, said. ‘She was right all along. They did owe her all that money.’
Now, thanks to the help of Turner and a lawyer she found, Witter should be receiving a cheque for $99,999 (around £75,697) in the next few days.

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It all started when Witter lost her job as a machinist, and moved in with her daughter in Colorado. She graduated as a paralegal from the local community college, and moved to DC in 1999 to try and find work.
But it’s a tough city, and Witter – who was at this point ‘pushing 70’, she says – didn’t manage to find anything except for odd jobs here and there. Eventually, she ran out of money.

Homeless woman who insisted she was owed $100,000 proven right after 16 years

When she finally decided to claim benefits, she kept being sent cheques for the incorrect amount. Whenever this happened, she would write ‘void’ on them and send them back in an attempt to fix the issue.

Palmer high school student who 'sexually assaulted 2 unconscious girls' AVOIDS jail David Becker, who one of the victims claimed was known as 'David the Rapist', was sentenced to two years of probation by Judge Thomas Estes in Palmer, Massachusetts, last week.

 The teenager was accused of sexually assaulting two classmates at East Longmeadow High in April while they were asleep in the same bed. They claim they woke up to him attacking them. He was given the sentence, seen by some as a slap on the wrist, as his defense attorney, Thomas Rooke, said it was a 'mistake… clouded with alcohol'.

The lawyer then added that men Becker's age 'make mistakes', and said: 'He can now look forward to a productive life without being burdened with the stigma of having to register as a sex offender.' He will not have the attack on his criminal record and will only have to undergo sexual offender treatment if he doesn't get into trouble before August 2018. Becker will also be allowed to serve his probation in Ohio while he starts college.

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Witter ended up moving into a homeless shelter, too proud – or ashamed – to tell her daughter about her situation.

But despite being dismissed as crazy and even referred for psychological counselling, she never stopped insisting that she was owed the money. So it’s fortunate that she met Turner.

In May this year, Turner took Witter to the Legal Counsel for the Elderly, where she received advice from lawyer Daniela de la Piedra – who agreed that she was owed the money.

Homeless woman who insisted she was owed $100,000 proven right after 16 years

In June, she was sent an initial cheque for $999 with the promise of more on the way. The full payments are now starting to come in, and Witter has moved into her own flat – a small place she’s renting for $500 a month.

‘That’s part of the problem with homelessness in DC,’ Turner added. ‘So many cases are written off as being about mental illness. A lot of times, homelessness really is simply about economics.’