"A woman had applied for SNAP through Foodshare at one of our outreach sites at the end of July. Staff sent this in to the state Department of Social Services (DSS) on August 5.
"The client called last week to say she had not heard from the state. To make matters worse, she had been laid off since she applied for SNAP, and no longer had income. I called a direct line that Foodshare has for such matters. The worker initially could not find the client in their system. Eventually she did locate the clients file. She told me that DSS sent a request for additional information on or around August 20th. They never received a response. The worker said the client should call the new central number and inquire about the needed information.
"The client called and had to wait almost 2 hours before being assisted (by a different worker than the one I spoke with). The worker could not find her in the system and told her that she should reapply!
"I then called a supervisor who has helped Foodshare previously, and explained the situation. He was able to locate the clients file but said there was no recent history, and no application. He was very apologetic about the confusion. A new application would have to be filed, and the start date for benefits would be that of the new application. She would lose several weeks of benefits going back to the begging of August.
"Upon hearing this from me, the client broke down. She explained that the entire process has been too stressful and she declined to reapply."
How sad is this? Someone who qualifies for the assistance, and desperately needs the assistance, but the bureaucracy stands in the way of her getting the food she needs. Foodshare staff and volunteers do all we can to cut through the red tape and make things happen for people in desperate situations, but sometimes even our efforts are not enough.
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