Note: I am always honored people still submit their unemployment experiences to my website. I wanted to share the post below. I did only did some light editing to break up some of the sentences but I didn’t change the content. The post below is by an anonymous contributor, but she did leave her email in case anyone can help.
I filed in Feb of 2020 after having nearly an eight-month struggle just to convince the unemployment office to freeze all of my accounts and file fraud forms to finally receive a letter that proves my case. After finally clearing this up (keeping in mind I lost my residence, my business, my truck, equipment, home PC, and all my clients due to not being paid), they tell me I have to do the ID.me process. My ID expired, and my birth certificate and social security card was lost upon moving things into storage that I have paid for with loans from my family.
So after begging for help from OED, [I’m also] living in the woods near the river, which is called a peninsula due to not being livable land because it floods three times a year the trees are all cottonwood which soaks up all the wet, rotting them out. Just during our wind last week, [it] almost took lost my life from one falling. We get nearly one a month down during spring, fall, and winter.
After several months I get sent to me $3000 from OED, so I’m able to get what I need for ID.me, so I begin the process. [It] takes even more time for waiting to have them sent to an address that took nearly another whole month to obtain due to being homeless. All the while in contact with OED telling me I’ll be paid all my unemployment as soon as ID.me is done.
Now I have no secure phone or secure email due to apparently someone I know must have and was still attempting to hack and phish me to get more of my money. So I go to a worksource program thru OED to maybe help. They told me they were waiting for a government phone to use for this purpose. This past week, I finally finish ID.me and I wait…
More weeks pass and so I called. And that’s when I get told some rule has changed and there is now a deadline for getting ID.me done and that deadline is set for the day before I finished.
I filed an appeal. I waited a couple of weeks like it said to do and called the administrator’s office of appeals to be told a judge is looking over my case to decide if I appealed in the time frame. I asked well don’t I have an opportunity to submit evidence she said that isn’t necessary, and you will hear from us soon enough.
I told her that’s funny because my friend went through this she had the right to plead her reasonable reason for being late. Appeals she said not all cases are the same.
So now what do I do?
I’m down here alone amongst junkies and crazies gathering wood just to eat my food box. Food I have to walk to get quite some distance away. They are a blessing but it hasn’t been much. I’m getting weaker, older, [and] tired. I’ve had three massive injuries including a third-degree burn on most of my foot. No ride to [the] hospital. Nobody to call. No help functioning [with] my daily needs.
I want my life back. I went from leaving a serious abuser (needing reconstructive surgery on my face) to starting my own business, renting a studio, [and] having started over in life. Things looked as if I was gonna finally be ok. I began to educate myself in the refinery business and was ready to get out there and make a name for myself.
Then it all crashed down when COVID hit. Although, I was sick for months from it still have a cough ongoing, [and] lost my sense of smell, and nearly my life COVID did not destroy my life like it had most… unemployment did. If anyone knows who I can reach for help or advise please find me at shellyKAY67@protonmail.com
shelly