Sandra Sandoval helps people with disabilities live independently
Cathy Cook | El Defensor Chieftain

Sandra Sandoval is an independent living specialist. Her own experiences navigating SSI and living with a disability have given her a good knowledge base to help other people navigate SSI and look for work. 

What do you do for a living?

I’m an independent living specialist and I work at the Independent Living Resource Center. We’re a nonprofit organization and what we do is, we help out people with disabilities. It could be of any age. We can help out anything to do with SSI issues, home modifications, home health care, and we can help out with anything to do with what their needs are.

If they want to get jobs, if they need assistance, if they don’t know how to do resumes, we can help with that. If they want job training, we can do that and if they want help with the interview, we can do that. If they’re being discriminated, we can help with that.

We can help out if they’re having a hard time looking for housing. We’ve been studying more about housing because it’s a more tough situation now.

How did you get involved in that work?

Me myself, I’m disabled myself and I was on SSI. When I was going to college, I was involved in all these programs and I heard about this job.

I was going to work, and they told me to go into the DVR program, which is Division of Vocational Rehab, and they’re the ones that told me, well there’s a person involved, a navigator. I went to him and he was also helping me with the same things because me, I’m disabled. I’m epileptic; I have seizures. I didn’t want to be on my SSI. I just wanted to get out there and work and that was my main goal with disability. I always have a hard time looking for work and I always get—they let me go whenever I have seizures.

He says well that’s not right.

He says whenever you go for your interviews what do you tell them? What do you think is the process? He told me, you’re going about your interviews in the wrong way. Whenever you first go to interviews, you’re telling them that you’re disabled and that’s not the right approach. Don’t ever tell them that. That’s not the way to start off.

He says, I know exactly the job for you. That person that’s working at the Independent Resource Center doesn’t want to be there anymore.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?

I feel really blessed because I’ve helped so many people.

My parents, I feel like whenever I was on my SSI and I used to get fired a lot from my jobs, just because they used to notice me having a seizure then I would get fired, my parents were like why do you want to get off of your SSI and go to work when the same thing is going to happen over and over?

I told them with this job, I feel way different about this job. I told them, besides, why do I want to sit at home and be depressed all the time and worry about my family’s issues, because everybody would look at me in a negative way.

It did take me a long time to graduate from college. I was a slow learner. Everybody would graduate in four years. I feel lucky that I was able to get out of my home. I’d rather be depressed at my job than to be home depressed about my family and thinking about all of their disabilities and worry about their issues. Now I’m at work at least trying to help people.

That’s what I like about my job, that I get to help so many people. And I get stressed about, I didn’t help them in the way I wanted to, but at least I’m not sitting at home stressing all day. Then my stress, the more I’m stressed, the more I get my seizures. That’s what causes my seizures, my disability.

What do you like to do for fun?

I like to spend time with my family. I’ve gotten a lot closer to my family. Me and my husband have two grandkids. We spend a lot of time with them. My stepson, I have a stepson and a stepdaughter-in-law, I feel like he’s made a lot of comments that he treats me really well, which makes me feel good because I’ve treated him as a son.

When we’re not visiting them, I like to go dancing a lot. Every time there’s an event here in town. There’s not as many now, but there’s going to be some more after the Covid.