Tricked Out Of My Social Security For An Entire Year

Location: Tacoma, Washington

I was homeless and I changed my mailing address to a friend's home for my important mail, like Social Security, Direct Express and all that. I didn't have a phone at the time so I updated my phone number to hers as well. I ended up losing my debit card so I called to order a new one but it never came, my friend said. I can see it all in hindsight now but please remember I trusted my friend very much. She is the manager of a confidential woman's residence, so when she gave me the application for housing I was ecstatic! I filled it out (with my entire social security number). Shortly after, she came to me with a review packet from Social Security and I let the papers get wet by accident so I couldn't send them in like that. And then I assumed they would stop my benefits so I just gave up from Dec. 2024 til recently Dec. 2025. I went to jail and in to a new program. While helping me with my insurance, it was found out that my benefits had never stopped at all and that I just needed to verify my ID with Direct Express for them to send me a new card and unlock my account (it had been flagged for fraud.) I had to wait for my new ID to come in, etc. and by then the 3rd (Jan. 2026) had gone by so my balance is currently approx. $1200 (1 month) and logging into view my transactions online, every month for the past entire year I would receive my Social Sec money and it would be withdrawn at an ATM all at once -- I believe my friend used the card that " never arrived " and my naivety giving her my SSNumber to activate it. We're talking over $12,000 while I was homeless. If it weren't for the fact she tricked me with the housing application (which I never heard about again - she told me it was a very good chance I would get in!!) I would probably just go on with life, but I saw her out there on the streets maybe three times in the past year and she would act just the same, as if she weren't taking anything from me. I was in a very rough spot I understand that I was foolish not to check up after I ruined the review papers (which I don't know if they were fake or not, I still haven't decided how to tell social security yet..) Is there any point to reporting this? Do I have a responsibility to? Will it end in criminal action against her? Could I maybe get my money back? I don't want them thinking we planned something together! And for an entire year to go by, did too much time pass? I can't stop kicking myself and losing sleep over this -- my condition is "unlikely to improve", I remember wondering why I would even have a review. And not receiving my card and just feeling too defeated to keep going, I need some kind of closure for my own self-esteem. Please Reddit, tell me what you can?