Not even a day after I write the post in here that I did about our SNAP case… not even being looked at, it is.
However, to get it to that point I had to write countless complaints, the majority of whom weren’t even read but were responded to with copied and pasted boilerplate that I knew was meant to placate me and put something on record so that the state could say they “responded”. I had to send countless messages to the official Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) page on Facebook, and Mention their official account on Twitter, numerous times even though they ignored me almost every single time I did this. I had to threaten to contact Legal Aid, which would have been the first step in litigating against the state had they not processed our renewal forms in the thirty-day time period that state law required them do — or, worse, if they had continued to ignore our renewal forms that they had been ignoring up until that point and our benefits actually lapsed as a result. This was what began to get their attention, especially as I continued to bring up the fact that I knew exactly when it would have been thirty days since I completed and sent off those renewal forms, and I continued to make it clear to the state that I would contact Legal Aid as soon as the first chance — pardon my pun here — legally presented itself for me to do so. So yesterday afternoon, I got a phone call from someone that turned out to be a state caseworker letting me know that our renewal had been processed, although at the time this post will publish on my blog it remains to be seen whether processed will actually mean “approved without a hitch” because of the whole homeschooling thing that I know I’ve mentioned in here. I mean, it should, because I’ve talked to the Texas Home School Coalition about laws that Texas has on the books versus unenforceable “regulations” that HHSC’s handbook has just now begun to tout, but… I guess we’ll see there now, won’t we? I’ll check the website in a bit and see what it says.
Also, another thing which is absolutely hilarious in hindsight: the state is desperate, and I mean desperate, to make sure I know that both of my kids’ child support orders are in non-enforcement as they legally have to be due to the good cause waivers that were sought out and approved for both of them. I guess the squeaky wheel really got the grease in that the complaints that I filed each day they were “accidentally” opened, and the fact that I made Attorney General Ken Paxton and corrupt child support “chief ombudsman” Stephanie Neely as searchable as I did added onto the fact that I also filed complaints with the National Child Support Agency every time this “accidentally” happened, plus every day these cases “accidentally” remained open, attracted all the wrong sets of eyes to the Austin child support office… and by that I mean the wrong sets of eyes for the state, not the wrong sets of eyes for me. Quite frankly, they need more eyes on them. And I’ve made it clear from the start that my end goal, and my job, is not to be friends with these people. It is apparently to protect my children from these people. I seem to do a great job at it, which I will continue…