I only JUST QUALIFIED for welfare, now I'm suspended!

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WTF

Ok, so I only JUST QUALIFIED in July for Welfare. Now today I get a letter in the mail stating I'm SUSPENDED for not providing some information. I just cannot believe how much f*ckin' paperwork this takes! They asked for something to do with my taxes from last year and I couldn't find it so I had to phone a government number and request another copy. Well that only came in the mail two days ago. And I have a meeting with my case worker this coming Monday morning. So I thought (logically, to me at least) that instead of spending 2 bus rides off my bus card that I would just wait to hand in that document till Monday morning when I see my worker. LOGICAL, NO??? Why spend two bus rides when I can just kill two birds with one stone so to speak and wait till Monday and give them to her then? When I was told how long it would take for that document to be mailed to me, I phoned my worker and told her the time frame, so I did do all I could to keep her apprised of the time frame on this.

Now I get this letter in the mail saying I'm suspended! I ONLY JUST QUALIFIED LAST MONTH!! !!

My bank account is in the hole by nearly the full amount of my overdraft limit!

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY is this so frakkin' difficult? I know it's government I'm dealing with so being a pain in the ass is a requirement, but still!

This stupid letter is getting me upset!

I've phoned my worker and left her a message but she hasn't phoned back yet. There's less than an hour before they're done for the day now, so maybe she won't phone me till tomorrow and I'll have to stew on this all night. I hate having to wait on someone else's schedule. This worker is not even an "intake" worker so why can't she phone me back soon?

I just phoned her again, no answer so I hung up.

Instead of sending this big long letter (it's two pages, and not the regular letter paper, they're the long "legal" letter papers!) why can't they just send a short note that doesn't look so ominous, saying 'we haven't received _______ information yet, we wondered if you had forgotten, please don't forget to send ______ in' instead of "your financial assistance has been suspended"! !! !

Sorry for going on and on. I'm trying not to have a meltdown over this.

sorry this is happening.

It's the same in Australia. If you want my opinion of what it's about, students and the unemployed are two groups which have traditionally been attracted to dissident politics, and countercultural lifestyles. To prevent this and to try to get these "troublesome" groups thinking and operating exclusively within corporatist frameworks, government imposes a range of policies designed to break their spirit and individualism through fear and humiliation, to get them severely in debt, as well as just to waste large chunks of their time.

Sure, it's unfair, since there is a global recession, and the jobs simply aren't there for everyone. It's also better economically for a person to be receiving welfare and spending it, than out on the street and not spending, right? But, it's not about fairness. It's about making sure you don't undermine the interests of power and privilege.

Good luck in gaining a diagnosis/ satisfactory employment, so you don't have to go through this anymore.

Well technically I do have a job that's being held for me but due to health issues (POTS, gives me issues with standing) I cannot work at this time. I was taken off the schedule as I kept going home early and the last day I worked I did not even last 20 minutes and I had to go sit down, my heart was racing badly and I went home in a taxi and later that day I went to the ER because of it. They can't fire me for medical issues so my job is there but because I'm unreliable I am off the schedule. It's a relief in a way, the job was getting too much for me both from the POTS issue as well as me being Asperger's.

You put it very well, about the policies, i.e. humiliation, etc. They put you through a wringer, making you submit 5,293 pages of stupid paperwork just to qualify, and the second you don't hand in something you get suspended.

And yet the place is always filled with the welfare moms who I suspect keep popping kids out just so they can collect more welfare money, and the people like me who genuinely need it get treated like pond scum.

Having spent the last 12 years fighting my now-successful SSI claim (and all the state-level programs in the meantime), I know that the form letters that they send are ALL written from a doomsday point of view ("You must comply with this or that, or RISK LOSING your benefits! Reply today!"). I imagine that they do this to shake loose those applicants who aren't really serious, but it can get tiresome and insulting to those of us who want to play fairly.

In my state, at least, I discovered eventually that I had 30 days to reply to any request for more information. When I received any such request which stated a deadline of less than 30 days, I wrote to the agency's audit and senior-management offices noting the violation of state laws. They stopped that tactic quickly.

In your case, I can only recommend that you prepare to provide the requested information when you visit with your case worker. Your solution appears the best plan of action for now.

Good luck.

Have you tried just explaining that you only recently got the document they requesting and telling them that you haven't yet had the opportunity to get it to them?

Well yeah - as I stated in my first post I did keep her apprised of the time frame, I was told X number of weeks to get that tax thing in the mail and that's how long it took, and I had left her a message at the time, explaining why I wouldn't have it for a while.

Of course I didn't get any acknowledgement of my message

She didn't phone back today.

Now I have to try not to fume about this BS this evening. Hopefully she phones back tomorrow - guess I'll have to leave my ringer on in case she phones at 8:30 in the morning when the office opens.

God I hate crazy-making, governmental bureaucratic BS runaround..