Outlook is Bleak

Is there no help for the down-and-out? We are not there yet, and I don't know that we will ever be that bad, thanks to family. But what about those less fortunate than us who don't have family or the Church to help them out?

At the beginning of the school year, I applied for the Free/Reduced lunch program and entered $0 as our income. Because of that, they only issued a temporary approval, requiring us to re-apply after one month. Again, I entered $0 on the application, thinking they'd approve us for free lunch for another month, but they called and said it was impossible to live on $0 and insisted that we instead base it on our budgeted expenses. That moved us up from free to reduced. I suppose it is better than nothing, but a peanut butter sandwich from home is still less expensive than a reduced-cost lunch that my kids may or may not eat. They told me that until I could either show proof of Food Stamps/proof of income/proof of unemployment benefits, my kids could not get free lunch.

After SSI lost my appeal twice, they scheduled me for an interview. (This, after calling every day for two weeks to be put on hold for an hour or two only to be hung up on IF I even got put on hold.) At the beginning of the interview, my caseworker told me my appeal had been denied so she didn't know why they allowed me an interview. But upon presenting my evidence (thank goodness I insisted on an in-person interview rather than over-the-phone), she reopened my case. Apparently, SSI social workers are only allowed one-hour time-limits with their clients and we ran out of time, even though she was obviously frantically working as fast as she could. She said she did 1 hour worth of work in 20 minutes (over-riding the denial and reopening the case) so she handed me some more paperwork and told me to drop it off later that day (which I did). Fortunately, our checking account balance is now within allowable limits and the file can now go on to be approved based on disability. (At least, I sure hope so. I need to call my caseworker [now that I have a name and a direct line] to make sure she got the paperwork and submitted it to the next rung in the gauntlet.)

Meanwhile...our checking account has now also fallen within allowable limits for Food Stamps. After submitting all that paperwork, I recieved a notice for a phone interview at the end of this month. I wondered if they no longer have you meet in person, or if this is preliminary before they let you come in. After reading a news article, I now think it is the latter. The article said that Texas law requires DHHS to process applications within 30 days but it has turned into 3 months and the fed govt has threatened to suspend funding for the program if the state can't figure out a way to meet the demand. (Sounds a lot like NCLB -- hold a gun to your head to make you do the impossible.)

After 2 months of waiting in the dark and unable to contact anyone, Unemployment finally called (on a Saturday no less), and asked Rex his story. Sympathetic to his case, she said not to worry but this sort of thing was more common than you'd think and he was sure to get some compensation. She gave him her direct number and said if he hadn't heard anything by the next Friday, to give her a call. We didn't hear from her, so Rex started calling and leaving her messages. She never responded and we figured his former employer was not cooperating or that the caseworker was swamped. But now I think she is just avoiding him because yesterday, as Rex signed in to log his job search history, he discovered his pending status had now changed to denied because "his employer fired him." That's news to us! So how do we find out what the employer said? How do we prove he was not fired? Rex went to the re-employment center to fax an appeal, only to find out the online determination was not adequate and he needed to wait till the official paper came in the mail, even though the clock on our 14-day window began to tick yesterday. (I've already dealt with SSI losing my appeal twice and running out my time limit; it makes me nervous having to wait on this too.) Upon reading the appeal procedures, I worry that character witnesses may put their own jobs in jeapordy as it sounds like their identity will not remain anonymous to the employer. How likely will it be that they remain loyal to Rex? At least he has a couple of letters of reference so those people cannot lie to save their own skins. But do we pull them through the wringer too in the process of redeeming our own reputation? Since Rex is no longer a teacher and therefore no longer covered by the teacher's union, they will not talk to him, much less give him legal advice. So far, I've found one phone number for free legal help, but I'm sure they are so swamped, it might be weeks before they call back. We are not out for vengence but vindication; we just want to clear his name so he can move on, get help, and get a new job. If they claim to have fired him, it's no wonder all the prospective employers with whom he's interviewed have decided to go with someone else! How do we strike their testimony from the record? How do we get them to change their testimony? Or is he just screwed? Is this how the foreboding prophesy in his patriarchal blessing is made manifest? Or is the foretold stigma still yet to come?

Today, I had a recertification appointment for WIC. I was not looking forward to it as they are very mean people, at least to us white English-speakers. I worried they'd tell me the same thing the Free and Reduced School Lunch program told me. And sure enough, I wasn't far off. I'd brought our last paycheck from August and our new online notice from Unemployment and explained our situation that we were in limbo right now. Unfortunately, I didn't think to bring our last bank statement which they said they would have accepted. (Of course, I couldn't call them first. It just rings and rings, or, if I'm lucky, I can spend 3 hours on hold before someone may talk to me (like I'm scum) or get disconnected. So I'm rescheduled for the last week of this month. [WIC, so fun, sitting there for 2-3 hours trying to keep my son occupied! If we weren't in need, I wouldn't bother, especially since we now only have one kid on WIC.]

Fortunately, starting in November, our CHIP insurance will be a non-copay plan. But I have to have proof of no income/low-income in order to qualify for Medicaid.

It's amazing that once you get out of the system, it's sure hard to get back in. Not that I'm proud to take hand outs. But when you REALLY need help, you certainly can't get it from the state! At least not Texas.

Thank you family, from the bottom of my heart, for all your help and support. And yes, I know Church is there too when we run out of savings and food storage.