Food stamp paperwork

I’m dragging my feet. I don’t want to do paperwork, especially government paperwork, especially additional paperwork after applying for food stamps. I was advised to apply by a friend who knows I have no actual income; I’m living on my son’s social security benefits and the remains of life insurance from my husband’s passing in 2017 almost seven years ago. I feel stuck in grief.

My husband did the paperwork for our household. I have little tolerance for asinine and overly picky rules. Doing without school paperwork is a major benefit of homeschooling in Indiana, where the only record required is attendance. For my high school age children, I also assembled transcripts to record the classes they took, grades they earned, and activities they did. The transcripts went on college applications, but the attendance record literally never got looked at by anyone other than me, myself.

My application for food stamps follows a similar application several years ago for Medicaid. We were approved for Medicaid, but the requirements for food stamps are considerably tougher. After the initial application online, they called me for a phone interview. I answered their questions honestly; we were refused food stamps. It’s a fair decision, I think; we’re in no danger of starving. My income is a little per month in interest earned on invested life insurance. That money would go right back into investments, except that surviving on less than 2000 dollars a month is nigh impossible. So I’m pulling money out every month to pay bills.

I have a mortgage to pay, including property tax and homeowner’s insurance. It would cost three times my small mortgage to rent a three bedroom house. Hence I need to keep this current. There’s electricity, natural gas, water, sewer, trash pickup, phone, and internet access. The internet access isn’t listed in the pile of utility expenses they want reported; I wonder if it’s not considered necessary or if it’s just not automatic to include it yet.

Two of my children have checking accounts with my name on them, and I’m a co-owner of my daughter’s car; these things must be listed as assets, even though I don’t use them at all. If we were starving, I suppose we would consider selling the car. My children buy some of their own food with their income. One of them no longer lives in my home.

The standard for government food assistance is: you must have less than 5000 dollars in total assets to qualify. No wonder many people are having to choose between medicine and food, between housing and food, between transportation and food. Inflation has skyrocketed in the last four years. Some things have doubled in cost. I feel like I’m living in the dystopia described in a science fiction novel I read. At some point the author says, “Buy now, while your money still has value. Tomorrow it will have less value and in a few months it will be worthless.”