Anna Landre grew up believing she had a future as bright as any one of her classmates. A mutant quirk of her genome makes her muscles weak, and she gets around in a wheelchair. But she assumed she’d find a way around any obstacle.

“My mom was always determined that my disability would not at all limit my future in any way shape or form,” Landre said. “I could do anything anyone else would do, and it would be harder but we’d figure it out.”

Neither Landre nor her mother realized that Landre’s freedom — to work, to save money, even to get married — would be restricted by something much more complex and implacable than genetics: a government welfare policy meant to help people like her but which too often presents the real possibility of personal and financial catastrophe.

“People don’t completely understand how backwards and unjust these regulations are,” Landre said. “Every time I talk to someone who isn’t in the disabled community they’d be like, ‘You’re kidding me. That can’t be how it is, that can’t be the law, there must be a way to fix it.’”