Login | April 25, 2024
Lost in the system
Legal Aid steps up to help those seeking unemployment benefits
TRACEY BLAIR
Legal News Reporter
Published: December 4, 2020
We’re more than eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic, but thousands of Ohio residents with outstanding or pending unemployment applications remain in limbo due to an overwhelmed system.
Community Legal Aid - a nonprofit law firm serving the legal needs of low-income individuals and families in central Ohio – is encouraging people who have been waiting for four or more weeks to contact them.
Ohio’s unemployment system has seen unprecedented numbers of applications since the pandemic began. More than a million Ohio residents filed for unemployment benefits in the wake of the state’s shutdown order issued by Gov. Mike DeWine.
This issue has been further complicated by the complex system of multiple layers of programs being offered right now by both the state and the federal government.
Legal Aid has already seen a surge in requests for help related to unemployment, with applications growing more than four times since March.
“We know the system is overwhelmed,” Community Legal Aid Executive Director Steven McGarrity said. “Unfortunately, though, people’s lives are dependent on these benefits, from life-saving medicine, to buying food for their kids, to keeping a roof over their heads. How many people do you know who could go four months without any income and not have it affect their lives?
“We have advocates who can act as a kind of liaison between people and the unemployment office. A lot of times, all someone needs is a staff member to touch their application. And a call or letter from an attorney can help make that happen.”
Legal Aid Staff Attorney Michelle Wrona Fox said the law firm has made pandemic unemployment issues a priority.
“Our staffing has increased 400 percent to handle the cases coming through,” she said. “Just being lost and not knowing what to do is still a problem.”
Wrona Fox said people are waiting an average of two months for their benefits before reaching out to the law firm.
“Another problem of being lost in the system is that people were being approved for benefits, but they weren’t issued,” she said. Benefits are supposed to be paid in four weeks, but people are waiting much longer than that - up to 90 days.”
There are several common issues for the long wait times for benefits.
In some cases, independent contractors are being rejected by both the traditional state program for not meeting the criteria as well as the special federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.
Legal Aid advocates can help those who have been denied benefits.
“The appeals process can be intimidating, and sometimes, people can be wrongly denied because of technology glitches, as we’ve seen,” McGarrity said. “Our team can help people through that process.”
Wrona Fox said advocates have seen quite a few people who applied for PUA be wrongfully denied for benefits.
“Part of (the process) to verify your identity is that you simply have to upload your driver’s license and maybe a Social Security card and birth certificate,” she said. “But people would upload it – some people as many as six times – and they would take screen shots and it would somehow be inaccessible by staff from the PUA side. This would go on for months. When they came to us, fortunately we have contacts at the agencies and we were able to see that if you didn’t upload it in the exact right spot, it would just go in this abyss and no one is checking to see if there’s anywhere else it could be. People call and call and (PUA staff) helps them upload it, but nothing gets done.”
Other clients are being lumped in with suspected fraudsters.
“A lot of low-income people can’t use traditional brick and mortar banks to get their benefits,” Wrona Fox said. “A lot of people who were defrauding the system were also choosing these online banks, so anybody who had that bank would then get their benefits frozen as well. Until they could sort it out, a lot of it was having to reidentify themselves and then getting lost in the system of turning in those documents.
“I have a concern this is still going on because the agency hasn’t sent out notices to these individuals that they’re considering it fraud. If people aren’t sent a notice, they don’t get due process rights – getting a copy of the notice stating they have the ability to appeal. So people who are stuck in the system have no ability to appeal right now.
“They can call and call at no avail. Fortunately, when they get to us, we have the ability to negotiate on their behalf and get that worked out. But I’m worried there’s a larger group of people who’ve given up from frustration. The level of frustration is very high because people are in a desperate situation. People need money to exist. What we’re forgetting about unemployment is this is just a sustenance to get through life. It is not a windfall people are getting half or less than half of what they were earning.”
In some situations, Legal Aid works with its housing team.
“While they’re working on the eviction, they’ll open a case and send it to me and we work in tandem to try to get their benefits released. Then the housing attorney will negotiate with the landlord while we work this out,” she added. “We look at the cases holistically because we find that often times if someone has a problem with unemployment, they also have a housing issue. They may have an issue with paying their mortgage. Sometimes they are trapped in a domestic violence situation that has gotten worse because of the pandemic.”
Legal Aid is also seeing a lot of self-employment issues from people who have trouble proving their income. But the biggest problems are system issues and appeals taking too long to be heard.
“We’ve had several people come through the door who were sent home by their employer because of COVId-19 symptoms. And then they’re being denied unemployment because they’re not able to work, when the executive order from the governor is specifically for someone in that situation,” Wrona Fox added. “And they should get benefits. They filed an appeal, and we work with the agency to work out that kink.
“It’s a public policy concern. It affects the whole public. We’ve said as a public that we want people to quarantine so they don’t get others sick and we want them to be able to subsist and get their benefits, but it’s not happening in a seamless way.”
Legal Aid is reaching out to those who may need help in various ways, including Facebook Live events every Wednesday at 5 p.m. and other social media efforts shared with community partners.
“We know there is probably many more people out there we would like to help,” Wrona Fox said.
For more information, visit www.communitylegalaid.org/covid19/unemployment.