Family receives unemployment benefits after months of uncertainty

After nearly three months of waiting for unemployment benefits, a Spokane family finally received the money last week.

Their weeks of waiting, with no answers, was riddled with worry and anxiety that they might not regain their footing from the financial hardships the pandemic caused them.

“Now it’s like the weight of the world had been lifted off of our shoulders,” James Hook said. “We no longer are worrying about what will happen now, we have our cushion back.”

The email they received on June 9, notified them that Emako Loran, Hook’s wife was approved for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a different kind of assistance from what she had originally applied for. The next day they received the $235 payment and $600 of what they were owed.

Although Loran received benefits, the Employment Security Department is still working to clear about 81,000 claims filed between March 8 and Monday, according to Employment Security Department data.

Department staff is prioritizing the 33,000 claims filed between March 8 and May 1, said ESD comissioner Suzi LeVine during a news conference Thursday. They had planned to have those cleared by the end of May but they are behind and are planning on having those cleared by mid-July, she added.

Eligible applicants will receive benefits for the weeks they are owed if they filed their weekly claims, LeVine said during a news conference June 4, but was unable to provide a timeline for when people can expect to be approved and see that money come in.

Before the payments came in for Loran, the family had fallen so far behind on rent for their Hillyard neighborhood home and other bills that they had to cut their internet and phone payments, Hook said. If it hadn’t been for an acquaintance who paid for their phone this month, their connection to the world would’ve been severed.

Not knowing what would happen was hard, and the road to getting there was a difficult and confusing one, Hook said.

The family, originally from Oklahoma, had only been living in Spokane for about a year when the pandemic hit. They filed for Loran’s benefits on March 16. On May 9, the Spokesman-Review first shared Hook’s and Loran’s struggles navigating through the Employment Security Department to receive benefits.

Loran was working at the Davenport Hotel as a housekeeper, which was the couple’s only source of income, when they decided Hook would stay home and take care of their two children’s multiple doctor’s appointments and scheduled surgeries. Hook said this seemed like the logical approach, as they worked to save up since he was more fluent in English than Loran was.

But the couple lost their only source of income when the stay-home order took effect and businesses deemed nonessential were closed.

They immediately applied for unemployment benefits and were sent a letter March 19 denying the request .

Four days later they received a letter notifying them that they were approved, but they weren’t able to access any benefits. Hook said this added to the confusion they already had in navigating the application process.

They were able to get an Employment Security Department employee on the line, who told them they didn’t qualify at the moment because Loran didn’t have enough hours accumulated, but that the requirements would change on April 6 so to call back then, Hook said. But when he did, no one answered his multiple calls despite being on hold for hours. They continued to file the weekly unemployment claims in hopes of receiving something.

LeVine said during a May 21 news conference that they had hired hundreds more staff so the department could deal with the high volume of calls they were receiving. But thousands of people have reported being on hold for up to six hours and having the call be disconnected once the business day is over.

“The fact is that they hired like 500 people a while back, and we were still being on hold for hours and nothing’s getting through,” Hook said. “It’s frustrating.”

The family was receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits to pay for groceries and Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs benefits to pay for some of their utility bills. But even this assistance wasn’t enough to cover all of their expenses while they waited for their benefits to come in, Hook said.

They had been deciding what bills to stop paying altogether so they would have enough to cover basic necessities, Hook said.

While they waited, the couple received a letter a few weeks ago from Apple Health billing them $1,500 for one of their children’s dental surgeries that insurance didn’t cover, piling on to their list of worries and bills, Hook said.

“This situation was rough, especially for the kids because they don’t understand why we can’t go do stuff,” Hook said.

The family wasn’t accustomed to a high lifestyle, but the months of waiting with no income put them below normal, he said.

“We’re an average American family,” Hook said. “We live paycheck to paycheck.”

Hook said he worried that when the moratorium on debt collection and tenant eviction is lifted his family might lose their home, because they don’t have the money to deal with all of the unpaid bills at once.

The couple had planned to bring their belongings to Spokane once they were settled and had savings before the pandemic hit them hard, Hook said. They still were making payment for a storage unit in Oklahoma.

“It is a blessing to know we are no longer living in a stressed-out life,” Hook said.

Thousands of people are still waiting to receive their unemployment benefits. Families who have fallen behind on rent or utilities can apply for rent assistance and other help from nonprofits that have homeless diversion and prevention programs.

People can receive help through rental assistance programs and for groceries or utilities through some programs like SNAP and Spokane-based Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington.

Catholic Charities has several programs to help families experiencing homelessness or families at-risk, said Sarah Yerden, director of marketing and communications for the organization.

The diversion program office will help applicants who need rent assistance and their emergency assistance program will help with utilities, she said.

If they don’t qualify they’ll be referred to other resources so they can receive the help they need, Yerden added.

Beyond their rent assistance program the office also helps tenants understand their rights and helps them with job searches, she said.

The Spokane Workforce Council oversees a program where people can apply for rental or utilities assistance, said Tim Crowley, housing and community development division manager for Spokane County.

“It could be a one-time or two-time assistance,” he said. “That’s all it takes to keep that person from becoming homeless.”

But concern surrounds the availability of resources to help all the families struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic closures and the unemployment backlogs.

Nonprofit and landlord association leaders told The Spokesman-Review last week they feared there wouldn’t be enough resources without additional funding.

Spokane County commissioners stated they would consider increasing assistance programs funding when they receive formal proposals from city leaders and previous funds are spent.

Other possible resources for families that have fallen on hard times can be found at onspokesman.com/stories/2020/apr/01/covid-19-spokane-community-resources/.