It's insane that you have to go there for any issues. You sit forever because they disconnected the operator line and you can't talk to a real person. They also never notified me of my benefits stopping, but they did send me a letter to remind me it's tax season. So poorly managed.
I applied for SNAP food stamps and received a form from them that's supposed to inform me what I'm supposed to do next. Unfortunately, the form is blank and they didn't tick off any of the things I'm supposed to do. I've been calling every single day to try to ask what it is that they need from me and there is never any answer (never!) no matter what button I press on their phone system's main menu or how long I wait. Absolutely terrible.
Do not go to this office. From the moment you enter the door, 'security' treats you as if you're a criminal.
You receive a number to be called to the reception desk. The woman working that desk calls numbers with agonizing slowness. She chats and laughs with fellow office staff. Therefore it takes her between 5-7 minutes to call each number -- mind you, this first contact is to inquire why you're there! After this 2 hour wait, you're sent back to your seat where you will remain for an additional 2-3 hours until you're name is called by a case worker.
Go to another office. Trust me.
If you are send somebody a letter that say he/she have a limit time to call you before his/her benefits end, ANSWER YOUR DAMN PHONE!
They never answer the phone and they always make mistakes and blame you
They have you on hold and the time they open says 8 and when you call them at that time they put you on hold they need to get new stuff this is a waste of taxpayers money I am soooo disappointed and I will not be going to this place at all. Need to get it ALL together.
They are very unorganized and overloaded with cases. The only way to ensure service is to go in and talk to get what you need.
What a waste of taxpayer dollars! They have fake callers 'waiting on hold' so they don't have to answer your call and instead leave you waiting on hold for hours! 65 callers in line in front of me huh? Yeah right. Maybe you should get more than 2 people working there. Oh and people that are on Medicaid? We're all getting shafted every 2-3 months having to resubmit the same personal financial information over and over! Wasting resources, wasting time, and HR jobs to people with no real life skills whatsoever. The Illinois medicaid system is a joke and so are the workers.
They never pick up their phone call to answer the simplest questions. This forces you to go to there depressing office and sit for 5 hours. This place is a joke and they need restructuring.
Why do these people work??? They never answer there phone. There should be an investigation about this because it s horrible. I call all human services number and never, never get an answer if u don t want to work then don t be there. Give the job to someone who loves helping people no matter what! Stop letting ur feelings get in the way and do ur job, after all; that s why ur there, RIGHT!!!!...ugh
Fake call center located in Homewood Illinois not even calling Springfield Illinois
They disconnected the lines so you HAVE to go to the office and let them know what you want. That's how it is with evey office now. There are no more assigned caseworkers which is just crazy. I preferred that to this chaos now smh
What a joke!!! The security guy on the desks sits on his phone and has no desire to help anyone! You ask a question and I guarantee you he does not know. Another example of wasted IL funds.
I've been waiting on the phone on hold to speak to a DHS agent and it's been almost 2 hrs. Seriously. No help .
I wish I could post a screenshot of my current wait time so your managers can see the poor customer service.
Ridiculous!
I'd rather cut my arm off and soak the nub in salty lemon juice. This place is hell and everyone hates their job. If I'm ever here for less than 3 hours I'll be shocked.
Worst service ever, benefits were supposed to go through on the 4th of every month, then on March 28th i received a letter stating my benefits were being canceled for 3 months, and here's the retarded part of the situation, they said it was because I " missed or refused to come to my appointment on April 20th. " Now how the hell could i have missed an appointment on April 20th when it wasn't even April yet when i got the letter. So, i hurried and made it to the office and met with Ms. Delgado who was super nice and very helpful in explaining things to me. I guess there was some kind of mix up which Ms. Delgado helped me with but despite her solving my problem, the system still messed up and now my benefits did not come on today like they were supposed to. Also, I have left 16 messages on about 4 different lines and have still not gotten a call back. Basically besides Ms. Delgado, i dont think theres anyone competent to even answer a phone at the uptown link office. I mean to leave 5 or 6 detailed messages each on several different answering machines and not get a call back is crazy, and i think proves the theory that the only qualification needed to work at DHS or the post office is one must b lazy.
Pretty much what everyone has said thus far. My personal experience is waiting for 45 minute, getting an operator, being ignored and hung up on. Not great.
Some of the staff were really pleasant while others were rude. Gave us a snap card that was not actually set up at all. Was forced to wait after pointing out situation
Worst service ever. We had an appointment/ for 10:30 am and arrived there 15 minutes early. We were told we had to take a number even thought we had an appointment. The security that was there was rude and would not answer pur questions regarding why we had to take a number even thought an appointment was made. When asking other staffs about pur regards them seem to ignore it and just tell us to wait until we are called. Two hours passed our appointment time and we were still not called. We waited past 5 hours of pur appointment untill we were finally called. There service is poor and they are disorganize. There is no point of having an appointment if they don't serve you at the time of appointment.
Service is unbearably slow, information misleading and the staff are easily irritated.. it's as if someone gave all this responsibility to a bunch of children who are unorganized and complain every step of the way. I'm from another state and I can say this is far below average. I sincerely hope someone evaluates their performance and brings some of this to light!
I have been trying to get in contact with someone since Friday, it's Wednesday now. I've left messages, voice mails and no one gets back to me. Today I called about 20 times, the phone just rings and no one answers. This is unbelievable.
They really need to hire more case workers at this location. It seems like they take a break every hour or 30 minutes.
Very, very nasty attitudes. I m really starting to think that it s a Chicago thing because it happens everywhere just about. I guess people forget that they can get reported by customers and lose their jobs. I spoke with an AA woman today and she talked to me in a very condescending, rude way as if I m below her. I was calm during the entire conversation despite the over an hour wait time and the negative attitude I received.
I wish there is a way to get this place a negative stars. I tried to call both my local DHS office and this place to cancel my IL case I am living in Indiana. Yes there are people ahead of me but why can one not just wait until top of the list.
Agreed to make payments after getting approved for food stamps when me and my family went thru hardship. Got billed 3900 for getting help .... Now that we are back on our feet ,we agreed on a monthly payment just started in January (sent out 1st payment with agreed paperwork) they have lost our payments threaten to send us to debt collections and will not return phone calls, we have proof of both payments.... How sad to kick a struggling family. This place and its employees are a joke
Didn't even let me speak, they just told me to mail the informing them with my situation.
Not a good place to be in they dont do they work really good they do bad work i drop my letter. Before the 15 for my renewal before the 31 and they never put my foodstamp back i always get it around the 1 of the month and we are the 15 days of the month and still no got my foodstamp yet.
This office is very professional considering their workload. The people are exceedingly friendly and helpful. They all deserve Kudos..
There very rude and you gotta sit in office for 4 hours just to report a change
This is the worse human department in United States, with my respect to most human services around our U.S. many discrimination in this place specifically. I m so shocked of their services with disabilities condition elderly people who comes to this place to receive a good human services!
Very long wait to get a question answered. They have nobody to answer their phones. I assume it is not the agency's fault, but rather their funding is limited due to all the budget issues that always appear to be effecting the State of Illinois. The people who work here are incredibly patient, nice and helpful and treat others with respect. The workers here maintain their professionalism even through the long lines and customers stopping them while they are walking to take care of another aspect of their jobs, asking them questions like "how much longer do I have to wait." Things like this. I only went here one time, after being off of work. My dad thought I should get a food card to help with expenses. I never felt degraded or embarrassed. Nice, hard working people!
UPDATE: This office location has closed.
It is literally impossible to call into this office for vital information to avoid losing services. They never get my address correct
I dont know why everyone else had bad experiences but i had nice experiences they were not rude to me and absolutely helped me. I dont speak for everyone im sure there r a few bad apples
Had to call about a repayment. No one answers the phone. Robot speaker talking to you. And, I refuse to wait when there are 68 people ahead of me and it was 3:30pm in the evening! Come on whatever happen to a person that actually talks to you? They need to bring that back! Horrible, unprofessional, lazy. I'll send my information in the good old mail.
Waiting are what they are, the staff are very helpful and friendly in all departments. Is refreshing!
I have been applying for foodstamps since last October and every time I apply they need my verification. So I bring in all my papers that were asked for, took a picture of me signing the log book and a pic of me standing outside the building with a note saying I dropped it off to Mr. Minard the supervisor and it has now been yet another month I haven't heard from or received any mail. No contact from these offices ever! I am a server/ bartender and have been out of work for almost 2 months now with no income and they steady keep dying me even though all they needed was the paperwork I had personally brought to them 4 times now.
Never answer the phone etc.....and rude when you go up there
Tried contacting this office to reschedule and appt; but they don't have an answering machine/operator/secretary. No snap for me a.a
Very unclear and disorganized procedures and correspondence. My first time dealing with the office was less than ideal, I ended up in tears because they kept moving me around so much and treating me like I'd done everything wrong. Now, trying to follow up on a letter I received while out of town, the due date for the requested materials is today, but out of the 7 times I have called on different days I have never been able to speak to a person. The number they gave me in the letter goes immediately to voicemail, where I have left voicemails and have not been contacted back. The number on Google gives you the option to speak to an operator, but that number is disconnected.
Nobody wants to answer phone. I have 3 people on my case and they want to give us only$30 to live off of for 1 month when my husband is without work. He is looking for eff and work but nothing yet
Tip: to avoid the long wait times at this office it's best to go around 4PM. IMO it's because they don't want to work past 5PM and they would have to if there's people left in the waiting area! I've done this quite a few times and it always works! No more breaks or lunches, they just want to get out of there on time. Now as far as calling this office goes the only time I've ever had luck calling them is when their office first opens which is 8:30AM . Other than that it's useless to call their office. Hope this helps!
Horrible customer service and long wait times. I would go early at 8:30 am but still wouldn t be a difference. And the receptionists are rude.
This is absolutely horrible.. these workers walk around the building all day doing nothing which causes an overflow of traffic. They are trained to lie about how services. I have been going here for 3 years and nothing has changed with their service. They take days off to catch up on work but never get any work done. When you do finally speak to someone, they violate HIPPA laws by talking to you amongst the public. This place really needs to be evaluated and needs new management.
Only thing that I have a complaint about is the long waiting period over the phone, before someone actually gets to speak with you. Other than that have no problem. My issues however is with the local office near the area I live. So unprofessional and rude.
They never answer the phone and the staff is rude and unhelpful.
The security gave wrong number i was waiting over 45 minutes and then some one else come after me and she gave him lower number like 8 number lower than my number that is really bad this place need more windows to serve people and butter security
Mrs.Demus is the best case worker here, very professional and sincere and quick service!
