The following is an e-mail I sent a few weeks ago
to several state service agencies, the Department of
Human Resources, DFACS, congressional representatives, and several more
parties I hoped would be of use. (Side note; It's amazing how many official websites
sport invalid e-mail addresses or defunct links on them. And the Office of the
Secretary of State is staffed by some real dense jack-wagons.)
The letter is pretty self-explanatory. The only thing I might add is that many
of these folks are also without phones or vehicles, two additional impediments
to this process.
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I am having serious problems with "DFACS" (Department of Families &
Children Services) regarding my food stamps.
The Department, in an effort to dissuade more people from getting/keeping
food stamps and stay alive, has changed their interview methods. Now, for
either application or review, an individual has to first have access to a computer,
fill out that form, and then call IN to DFACS to speak to a human rep for an
interview before the information can even be processed further.
And there's the rub; Getting a live person is impossible.
It's a bitter irony that this government agency is called the 'Department of
HUMAN Resources,' as there are no humans to be found, and certainly no
resources. Another lovely government oxymoron.
I understand that the more difficult they make this, the fewer people they'll
have to deal with. But this agency was created to assist people, and that's
what they need to be doing.
Last week I waited a combined total of 2 & 1/2 hours on the phone, only to
be cut off each time without making any contact.
Today I waited for an hour before getting disconnected. I finally reached a
rep's voice mail, and it was full. I called a different department and got trans-
ferred in, and received a busy signal.
I went to my local office and asked to see a rep, and they refused me. I asked
for a complaint number, and they told me to call the one I couldn't get through
on. I told them I don't have the ability to sit around on the phone all day, and
they said "I guess you will if you want your stamps."
This is completely unacceptable. My stamps, which I truly require to get my
food and stay alive--will be cancelled if I don't reach DFACS in time to renew.
The burden is on me. Yet they are impossible to reach. Someone really needs
to lose their job over this recent change, but more importantly, it needs to go
back to the old method.
(By the way, I received two different letters from two different locations of
DFACS offices telling me to be ready at specific dates at specific times to
receive a call for my phone interview. It's ONLY because I went to the local
office to see why I had two different appointments--after I had been on the
phone 3 hours that day unable to reach a person--that I found out the letters
were to be disregarded and they no longer did things that way. So they are
really in a bad way with disorganization and incompetence.)
Please see to it that the right people are addressing this problem, which is
surely affecting millions of people statewide.
Thanks for your attention and time,
Sincerely,
Robert Sayre
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It took me a total of 17 phone calls, three visits to the local DFACS office, several
conversations with contacts within the system, said e-mails being sent out, and a
sum total of over 21 hours to get my review completed.
Beyond unacceptable, and I'm a tenacious bastard who won't take 'No' for an answer.
What of all the meek and mild who don't have the strength or know-how to stand
up for themselves?
The workers themselves--the low level case workers who didn't implement this
ridiculous system but are forced to listen to enraged clients every day on the
phone calls that get answered--are fed up with the ineffective and frustrating
new system. I'm sure they'd give an interested reporter quite an earful.
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