Recertification

I think I forgot to blog about this, but about a month ago I had to pay a visit to the county office of Job and Family Services for my food stamp recertification appointment.

Every six months (well, recently it has been changed to once a year), JFS has to check that nothing has changed with your situation (income, people you share meals with) and you are still eligible for the same amount of food stamps.

It was quite a process.

I got a letter in early February saying I would get an appointment letter by Feb. 20 and to call if I hadn't.

Feb. 20 came and went, so I called.

After the standard 20-minute hold time, they said I was right, it looked like an appointment hadn't been generated for me, but they aassured me they would get one made and sent out.

Two weeks later, still no letter.

I called again. Same thing. They promised they'd get a letter out right away.

I finally got an appointment letter in mid-March, less than a week before the scheduled appointment -- but it was for a date and time I couldn't make it because of a work thing.

(Side note: The letter also asked me to bring the documents listed on the enclosed list. There was no enclosed list.)

I had to call to change it. They said they'd get a new appointment made up and sent out -- but I was shocked later that day to get a call from my ACTUAL CASEWORKER!

We set up a new date, I got a new letter verifying the date we talked about, and all was well.

THEN I got an appointment letter with a handwritten note from the caseworker saying sorry, but she had to change it to a different date from the one we talked about and hopefully that was ok?

Luckily it was.

And all was well again.

But THEN I got ANOTHER appointment letter in the mail with a DIFFERENT date from the either the original date and the changed date.

So now, if you're following this, I went from no appointment to three appointments. But which one was the REAL appointment?

I called again. We got it straightend out. Whew.

The actual appointment was pretty much a breeze.

Except that they said I had to put in 27 hours a month as a WEP worker. Which is legal for them to ask of me but would be a real drag, seeing as I actually do work a fulltime job already.

WEP stands for Work Experience Program and its what people do to satisfy the work requirement for food stamps when they don't have a job. Basically clock hours at a placement site like work but with no pay. There are lots of WEP workers at the food bank, loading trucks, stocking shelves, etc.

I had to sign a bunch of release forms and pick a day of the week to work, and they said they'd contact me about a placement, but so far I haven't heard any more about that. They haven't stopped the food stamps, so we'll just file that one under Cross That Bridge When We Get To It.

After this experience, I can now understand how people end up missing appointments and losing their benefits.