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When Ms. D. came to HAP with a welfare problem in the summer of 2002, she was living at Acts II, a large Philadelphia family shelter.
Ms. D. had been "sanctioned" by the PA Department of Public Welfare (DPW) for failing to attend a mandatory appointment with her case worker. Under new welfare regulations, a sanction can automatically discontinue a client's entire benefit check for one or two months. Even more devastating, a client's benefits are permanently discontinued if she is sanctioned three times.
The problem in Ms. D.'s case was that she never received any of the notices about the mandatory appointment - because DPW continued to send them to her old address, despite the fact that she had given them her new shelter address in writing, immediately before she moved into the shelter. Luckily Ms. D. had saved her receipt proving that she had provided her new address.
A HAP volunteer faxed a copy of the receipt to the case worker with an explanation of the situation. After persistent advocacy by the HAP volunteer, the DPW retroactively granted Ms. D. her benefits for the 30-day sanction period, and erased the sanction.
Ms. D. is continuing in a job training program and is saving money for permanent housing.
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