1. United States
2. Ill.
3. Letter

Hello! I have a complaint about the IDHS. Recently my neighborhood suffered from the two tornado events of July 27 and August 11. So many of us were without power for 4 days. This obviously means a lot of us had total or partial loss of food. I am a food allergic person so this was especially frustrating because for the first time ever I had to replace everything I had in freezer and fridge and still have not been able to replace everything because some stores quit carrying some of the things I normally would buy. I generally never have to buy everything at once either. It’s usually microshopping trips where I get just what I need that I might have used or that might be on sale. I, along with many others, filed the form for replacement of destroyed food through the IDHS. Well, I actually went through Anthony Deluca’s office for help because every time I called IDHS Blue Island office number, it bounced to the state number which always said it was too busy to add anyone else to the queue and would disconnect us. So imagine my frustration when I finally receive this e-mail after weeks of following up: “Case # 225917102   The document was uploaded and reviewed but you did not provide proof of the outage causing your form to be denied.”   And to make matters even more frustrating about this is the fact that I was NEVER contacted to provide “proof.” Ironically, they would KNOW this had they been paying attention to the news about Chicago Heights and the surrounding villages of southern Cook County. But had I been asked for the “proof” and advised what they needed, I could have and would have GLADLY sent them screenshots of the power restoration ETA texts. Kudos Illinois for dropping the ball on disabled people like me who cannot easily go to food banks to replace damaged food due to many food banks not being equipped for food allergies. Heck, even the Red Cross shelter could barely provide for my food allergies. I am beyond exasperated.