Wanda Witter isn't crazy, and she's been waiting for 16 years to finally prove it.
Wanda Witter, at home at her new Washington DC apartment after hew battle with the government.
The 80-year-old former machinist from Corning, NY, has been sleeping on the streets of Washington DC for years, trying to get the Social Security Administration to pay her the $100,000 or more that she was owed, according to a report from The Washington Post.
"They kept thinking I was crazy, telling me to get rid of the suitcases," Witter told the Post. But the suitcases contained her evidence against the government.
After years of being shuffled to mental health counselors and failing to get anyone with Social Security to listen, a social worker named Julie Turner finally took her seriously.
"She had all the paperwork there, neatly organized, in order. She was right all along. They did owe her all that money," said Turner.
She brought Witter to a legal clinic for the homeless, where Daniela de la Piedra, now Witter's attorney, looked through her evidence and determined that she really was owed the money.
Witter's war with the feds started after she lost her job as a machinist at the Ingersoll-Rand plant in Corning, according to the Post. She earned a certificate at paralegal school, and tried to find work in Washington DC, where she moved in 1999.
Job opportunities were scarce, however, and the money quickly ran out. In 2006, she tried to draw from her social security, but the payments she received were wrong, and she knew it.
No one at the SSA could answer her, and being somewhat stubborn, she decided to write "void" on the checks and send them back.
"If I just cashed them, who would believe me that they were wrong?" she explained to the Post.
Witter eventually moved into a shelter and tried to resume getting the checks, but they didn't find her there.
Witter continued her attempts to reach someone at the SSA, still to no avail. Instead of the legal advice she needed, she was sent to mental health counselors.
"She needed economic help, not mental help," Turner said. "That's part of the problem with homelessness in D.C. So many cases are written off as being about mental illness."
In June of this year, with the help of Turner and de la Piedra, a Social Security Official finally acknowledged the case, and wrote Witter a check for $999 on the spot.
On Aug. 19, a check for $99,999 was deposited into her bank account, according to WJLA-TV That's the largest check they can cut in one shot, and Witter might be owed even more.
Her first full and correct social security payment of $1,464 arrived earlier in August.
Turner found Witter a studio apartment in DC for $500 a month. She moved in on Aug. 16, and Turner helped furnish it with donations and items she brought from her home.
Witter first plans to use the money to address her health problems related to living on the street for so long. But she's a bit worried about wasting the money.
"I can't imagine how to handle $100,000. I have never had that kind of money in my life," she told WJLA.
Watch the WJLA report below.