DeLand, FL - Anyone who's laid off or furloughed and trying to collect reemployment assistance knows the frustrations of the system. State Repesentative for the 27th District David Santiago says his district aide is fielding 30 to 40 calls a day from people asking for help to get through the system. "We are certainly seeing it. As a legislator and an individual, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I'm sad because we do hear some people's stories and there are people out there who are legitimately struggling."
Santiago says he's hopeful and optimistic that the shutdown of the Department of Economic Opportunity's website over this past weekend will make a difference, "This system has been in place for a long time. It had some underlying flaws, which I just learned about when this problem started, when the crisis of the pandemic. I will say this, absent the underlying system issues, I don't think any system was designed for this type of response."
Shutting the system down was a strategy for the state to catch up on pending claims, according to Santiago. "I'm convinced that they are putting all the resources that they can at this fix. They told me that the goal was to clear out the huge pending backlog. People kept logging in multiple times a day and that was slowing things down even on their back end."
If the shutdown strategy isn't working or you need other help with filing your Remployment Assistance claim, you can contact Santiago's office at 386-575-0387.
