DC Department of Human Services

I've already said what needs to be said about my experience. I have filed for the third administrative hearing against the Department for the third time this year about the same problem.

I am adding a civil suit because it is obvious that unless the Department gets hit in the wallet, the outrageous, unprofessional conduct will continue.

I seriously wonder what are the criteria for hiring employees when every year I end up having to request administrative hearings because city employees always use false information because they use whatever information that questionable employees file erroneously. As I have seen, some employees show disrespect for the law and not just the applicant for public assistance.

A short time ago, a woman from DHS called me and asked to review the details of my income from Social Security. She seemed to be having difficulty in understanding the information that I was giving her.

I repeated the information slowly and clearly. She accepted what I gave her, or so I thought.
This past week, I received a letter from the Department indicating that my SNAP benefit would be reduced drastically. I read the letter and saw that all the financial information was VERY incorrect! The amount of gross income was twice what I receive.

The net income was a figure in dollars and cents. Social Security NEVER makes payments that include fractions of dollars; they always round the amounts to be whole dollars.
It was obvious to me that someone just made up the amounts that I received that are baseless. I called the Department and told the person who answered of the errors. She asked me to hold, so I did.
Another woman with a very belligerent tone of voice came on the phone and said that I claimed that I receive BOTH Social Security Disability Income and Social Security Retirement Income!

First of all, I never made such a claim. Secondly, Social Security does not pay Disability and Retirement together; Disability is paid until retirement age, after which Disability is no longer paid and Retirement is paid instead. The woman refused to admit her mistake, insisted that I told her that I receive both even though Social Security does not pay both together, and then slammed the phone down.
That woman deserves to be fired at once! Purposely recording incorrect financial information for the purpose of slashing my benefits is criminal.

I know better than to call again because she is probably making sure that I suffer damages. I truly have no idea what to do except to file for an administrative hearing and to demand the woman's name and address to file a civil lawsuit against her for slander.
August 16, 2023
This story is too insane for words. The Department of Human Services notified me that I needed to recertify for benefits in 2023-****. They instructed me to use a mobile app for filing the application.

I naively tried to do it, only to see an app that froze at times, that would not accept answers from me on every question, and was so dysfunctional that I just gave up, deciding instead to file a paper application as the mobile app was trash. I made that attempt on June 20, 2023. Little was I to ever dream that that filing and that date would be thrown up in my face over and over 28 TIMES IN LETTERS SENT TO ME ONE AFTER THE NEXT!
I downloaded the file with the application form. I then printed out all 68 pages of the application and then sat down to review it.

I filled out the parts that related to me, signed where required, and set aside the pages that were relevant to me (23 pages in all) so that I could scan all of them and then send them in a big envelope to the Department of Human Services via Priority Mail on July 15, 2023. The deadline for filing an application was July 20, 2023, so that was sufficient -- or so I thought.
I have to report that after the unsuccessful filing over the mobile app, I started receiving one letter after the next, all referring to the Incomplete Application Submission on June 20,, 2023, and then giving me a notice to file a complete application by July 20, 2023. The letters kept coming in, usually three at a time, almost every day. I had tried to email the PDF file containing the completed application, but it was too big for the email to handle.

I tried faxing it over faxage.com, but it was too big for them also. I then made smaller files of five printed pages each with cover sheets on each explaining what was contained. I did send those via email. However, the same letters about the June 20, 2023 filing kept coming in.

Realizing that I had no choice, I then put all the completed application, all 23 pages, in with a cover letter into a large envelope, took it to the post office, sent it to the Department of Human Services via Priority Mail on July 15, 2023 as I mentioned above, and thought that I had finally completed the requirements for the task. However, even after that, the letters referring to the June 20, 2023 filing kept coming in, all with identical content to the letters with only the date of issue being updated. After I sent the application in, I hoped that everything was settled. On July 19, 2023, I went to an office of the Department of Human Services, received a statement confirming my approval for all benefits, and hoped that would end the flood of letters.

WRONG!!! The letters kept coming in one after the next! It was July 29 when I received a letter from them again dated July 21, but this time, I was being told that my SNAP benefits application was being denied because my application made on June 20, 2023 was incomplete! On August 8, again I received a letter telling me that my Medicaid application had been denied, once again, because of the application made on June 20 that was incomplete!

I was getting these denial letters after I had already received in hand a statement confirming their approval!
Not having a choice in the matter, I filed for an administrative hearing with the intention of going into the hearing with the packet of 30 letters in all that I had received about the same flawed attempt at filing over a mobile app on June 20, 2023 and hoping that I would wave all the letters in front of the judge so he/she could see a functional definition of the word "insanity!"
After this harassment -- and that's what it was -- I resolved to relocate out of the District permanently.

Living in DC is costly, so that's a minus, but dealing with a hostile city government was more than I was willing to tolerate. I have to report that other departments of the DC government have made trouble for me over the years, beginning with 2003 when I first moved into the District, I have one story about another department that is truly shocking, but that I will save for another complaint; putting them all into this one will require me to approach a publisher to create a book to market on Amazon!