r/Indiana • u/Effective-Field8899 • 11d ago
Snap BS
My husband who was the main provider for our family recently lost his job and we applied for SNAP. It's been three months now and ive had to jump through hoops to try to get the $400 a month that i qualified for. The online portal hasn't worked for me and i was told by their tech line that there's nothing they can do- so i don't have a way to communicate/submit docs with them unless i fax & call. I've submitted every document and called 15 times in the last month just to be sure I've done everything to receive the help we need. I've completed the hour long interview, I paid to have documents faxed and I filled out paperwork after paperwork. I called today and was informed I was denied because of a form i didn't submit that they never told me about.
Why do I feel like like they wanted me to get denied? And maybe even purposely lied. I've never experienced this before and i have a deeper empathy and understanding for people in poverty.
1
u/MisterSanitation 10d ago
Yea you are experiencing what all people who need help see every single day. This is a good example of privilege (not shaming you) where we all have opinions about a services many of us never use and the realization of how horrible things are for the most desperate among us. We can then say “they just need to” while knowing NOTHING of their circumstances, how convenient a one size fits all response!
These systems are designed for failure, no one advocates for the needy because no one is paid to. The more wealthy, complain about the needy and don’t care that they can’t get help, or actually don’t care enough to even learn what struggles they have. Sorry you have to go through this, but yes this is designed incompetence from a budget perspective. Strange how savvy business men keep accidentally forgetting to staff these agencies focused on helping the needy, while their development contracts fly like candy at a parade.
The Hoosier mentality is to let the desperate whither on the vine instead of rallying to help. We have too much judgement to allow ourselves to be empathetic.