u/DemonDookie

I know a lot of people going through this right now IRL so I figured I'd share my experience and hopefully help some of yous guys.

So they started like quarterly making people requalify for assistance. Annoying but whatever. Well I turned in all my paperwork and then they said I didn't turn in all the paperwork. Total BS. I had my lease, pay stubs, all that jazz and submitted the PDF copies online.

So I requested an appeal or whatever. Well, they call me and tell me, "uh why you wanna file an appeal, you didn't turn in your paperwork" and I says, I says "That's a goddamned lie and you know it" and they were like, "look, you should just reapply from scratch, because you're wasting your time with an appeal" and I says "No, I'm not waiving my right to a hearing"

Fast forward to today. I got a letter last week telling me the date of my hearing with the ALJ (today) and so I says to myself, maybe I am wasting my time, but if they wanna kick me off my assistance I'm gonna make them work for it. Maybe if we all file appeals they will just give up and let stop kicking people off HIP and SNAP.

So I told my boss yesterday, I'm gonna be late for work cause I have to do this hearing. And she was like, "hearing? Did you forget to pay your child support again??" and I says, "No, my kid turned out to not be mine, so I don't have to pay child support anymore" and I says "No, this is a hearing for my benefits"

Anyway, I called the thing and they put the judge lady on and the representative from the state and then we had a pre-hearing conference and the lady from the state says, "oh yeah, we're planning on reinstating your benefits back to February"

Whole thing took just under half an hour and my money will be on my card by Friday.

So ultimately I'm glad I went through the whole process because If I had given up like they told me to I would be out $1200 and have to go without medical coverage.

If I can do it, so can you! Just make sure you are very thorough when they ask for paperwork and don't blow off those letters. But if they ever try to talk you out of your benefits tell them to kick rocks.