JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The CONNECT website reopened Tuesday after being shut down for maintenance and implementing the extensions of the CARES Act programs.
The Department of Economic Opportunity said the website was closed while the department, “works to continue efforts to implement the CARES Act programs, process payments and send necessary correspondence to claimants including tax documentation.”
This brought a lot of hope to unemployed Floridians who have been dealing with glitches throughout the month while waiting for CARES Act program extensions to be implemented.
Some claimants state their claims were fixed and they are on the right track, but many still say they are running into the same problems.
Crystal Sanchez, who was on PUA and has been switched to a state program she does not qualify for, was anxious to open her portal Tuesday, hoping to see her claim back on track.
“I have 75 cents to my name,” Sanchez said. “I can’t buy diapers. My car will be repossessed any day.”
Unfortunately, Sanchez’s claim was not fixed over the weekend update.
As a result of the glitch, Sanchez currently has multiple “active” unemployment claims and cannot receive benefits until the others are deleted.
“The system doesn’t know which one to put you on and pay you from,” said unemployment expect Vanessa Brito. “It doesn’t just pick whatever one has money on it. It doesn’t work that way.”
Brito said she woke up inundated with messages Tuesday morning from disappointed claimants, who were hopeful their claims would finally be fixed.
Brito said she is dealing with cases like Sanchez’s, but many are a result of people clicking a link that was presented to them to reapply for benefits for which they don’t qualify.
“Many, but not all, who reapplied are seeing a delay in having their claims updated,” Brito said. “When you reapplied, you simply created a duplicate Regular claim within the same benefit year, overlapping claims of the same program type. After the weekend update, PUA claims were updated and made ‘Active’ again. Unfortunately, the duplicate claim must be removed/withdrawn before the system puts you back on your Active PUA claim with a replenished balance.”
Some other PUA claims have a “pending” status as well.
Vanessa Bradshaw said this was the case for her before the weekend update, and she was optimistic her claim would be fixed Tuesday.
“An agent told me that they were going to do a big update over the weekend and that everything would be fixed come today, but still nothing,” Bradshaw said.
Brito said this is also a very common issue.
After almost a month without payments ands bill stacking up, Sanchez and Bradshaw say it’s getting harder to hold onto hope.
“You can’t keep telling people, ‘be patient, be patient.’ Our patience has run out,” Sanchez said.
