For about a year, Hector Rodriguez lost a portion of his limited income, including in some months, a portion of his much-needed Social Security disability benefits over a student loan that was eligible for forgiveness.

Rodriguez, an army veteran, took out student loans in the 1970s to attend college, but he ultimately had to drop out due to frequent hospitalizations and later defaulted on the debt, according to a lawsuit he filed against multiple government agencies earlier this month. In 1973, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He began receiving Social Security disability benefits shortly thereafter and has received them continuously ever since.

Rodriguez’s disability was so severe that he qualified to have his student loans wiped away through what’s known as a total and permanent disability discharge (TPD). And yet, in 2013, he received a notice from the government indicating that the feds planned to garnish a portion of his disability benefits to pay off his student loan, according to his lawsuit. The notice never indicated that a disability discharge might be a possibility and when he spoke to the government-hired debt collector responsible for his loan he or she never provided that information even though he informed them that he was disabled, he claims.

Shortly thereafter, the government began taking $177 out of his $1,184 disability check. He worked out a deal with his debt collector to pay $100 a month to avoid having his benefits offset, but given his very limited income, that still constituted a hardship, the suit claims. Finally, Rodriguez, 67, spoke with an attorney who informed him he was eligible for a discharge, but it took him 11 months to prove it and he lost $1,300 in much-needed income along the way.

“If (the notice) had said you have a right to apply for a disability discharge he wouldn’t have lost all of this money,” said Johnson Tyler, Rodriguez’s attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services, a legal-aid clinic. “It’s a fairly typical problem and that is the essence of the case: that they should put it right in the notice.”

Rodriguez’s story highlights the government’s sometimes aggressive approach to collecting student loan debt, borrower advocates say. Borrowers with federal student loans have a variety of protections available to them to make manageable payments, but if they aren’t aware of them and they ultimately default, the government has extraordinary powers to collect on the debt. Those include, garnishing Social Security benefits, tax refunds and wages without a court order.

It’s hard to say exactly how many borrowers subject to garnishments have conditions that would qualify them for a disability discharge, like Rodriguez, but a growing number of borrowers are losing out on their disability benefits over unpaid student loans. In 2015, the government garnished the benefits of nearly 114,000 borrowers over 50; of those, more than half were receiving Social Security disability benefits, not Social Security retirement benefits, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.

And in some cases, the feds pursue a debt that borrower activists allege they should know or have reason to believe is actually dischargeable. In recent months, borrower activists and media reports have called attention to government efforts to collect on debt owed by students who attended now-defunct for-profit colleges, when the feds have evidence that these borrowers are victims of fraud and are therefore entitled to relief. But there are other scenarios, like Rodriguez’s, where the government has information at its disposal that would indicate the debt is dischargeable, but the companies hired by the feds to manage the debt pursue it anyway, borrower advocates say.

In some cases, these firms may always not be up front with borrowers about their rights. Evan Denerstein, a staff attorney in the consumer rights project at MFY Legal Services, a legal-aid organization, said he gets calls frequently from disabled borrowers who are having their benefits garnished and have no idea that they have an alternative. “There are people that the government is paying who should be telling them this and quite frankly are not,” he said, referring to the government-hired servicers and debt collectors who work with borrowers. “It shouldn’t necessarily be the case that people have to call legal services organizations to find out their rights, they should be informed of them up front.”

The Department of Education declined to comment on the litigation as did the Social Security Administration. The Department of Treasury, which is also a defendant in the suit, didn’t provide a comment by press time.

But the Department of Education is working to make it easier for borrowers who qualify for a disability discharge to receive it. Earlier this year, the agency cross-referenced its records with those of the Social Security administration and identified nearly 400,000 borrowers who qualified for a discharge — about 100,000 of which were at risk of losing their tax refunds or Social Security benefits over the debt — and sent them a letter inviting them to apply for one. The agency also began suspending disability benefit offsets in cases where it’s clear the borrower has a medical condition that won't improve, according to the recent GAO report.

Borrower advocates praised this policy, but they said it still fails to capture all of the borrowers who may be facing offset, but would still qualify for a discharge. The match is focused on people whose disabilities are classified by Social Security as medical improvement not expected, but there are people who meet the Department of Education’s definition of qualifying for a disability discharge who aren’t in this Social Security category, advocates say. As the suit notes, there are also borrowers whose disability may put them in the medical improvement not expected category, but aren’t aware of it.

“It does potentially help at least some of the people who would qualify, but it doesn’t provide notice to everyone,” said Deanne Loonin, an attorney at Harvard Law School’s Project on Predatory Student Lending and a longtime borrower advocate.

What’s more, even when disabled borrowers are aware of their right to have their loan discharged, they may face challenges during the application process, the GAO report noted. In Rodriguez’s case, he lost out on benefits while he was winding his way through the process.

Loonin said ideally the Department would step in before a borrower who is permanently disabled faces offset by not certifying their debt for collection. When the Department refers a debt to collections, the agency is certifying that it’s legally enforceable. If borrowers qualify for a discharge, that’s not the case, Loonin argues. And once the debt goes into collections, it’s challenging for a borrower to raise the issue of a discharge, she said.

In the suit, Rodriguez claims he told his debt collector that he was disabled and was looking for a way to avoid having his benefits garnished, but the company didn’t inform him of his right to apply for a disability discharge. The suit notes that government-hired debt collectors aren’t incentivized to tell borrowers they could have their debts wiped away because they earn more money when borrowers choose other ways to get out of default.

And when borrowers are facing offset over those debts, it can be a real financial challenge. About 67,300 borrowers had their benefits garnished below the poverty line in 2015, the GAO report found. What’s more, often the offset benefits are only being put toward interest and fees, not toward paying down the debt, which in many cases is decades old.

All of this has left borrower advocates questioning why the government is pursuing borrowers like Rodriguez so aggressively.

“We shouldn’t involuntarily take money from people who if all the ‘i’s were dotted and ‘t’s were crossed wouldn’t owe the money,” said Persis Yu, the director of the Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project at the National Consumer Law Center. “If we have reason to believe that you don’t owe the money we shouldn’t take your Social Security benefits or your tax refunds or whatever assets folks are using to survive.”