After months of back and forth with the D.C. Department of Employment Services, a D.C. resident is suing the city, alleging it owes her at least five weeks of unpaid unemployment benefits. The lawsuit casts a light on the struggle many residents are encountering as they try to get the support they need to pull through a major economic crisis.

In the lawsuit filed with the D.C. Superior Court on June 23, Michelle Ruby says she did not receive unemployment benefits for three weeks in April and two weeks in June. She also says that DOES told her the “claims are owed” to her, but it can’t “fix” its computer system in order to disburse the payments. She’s seeking the unpaid benefits, as well as interest on those payments and damages for pain and suffering.

“The loss of sleep, the crying — right now I don’t know how I’m going to tell my landlord I can’t pay them my rent because I don’t know what’s going on with my unemployment,” Ruby says. “It’s spending hours — and I’m not talking about just one-time hours, I’m telling you days where I’ve spent hours waiting to talk to somebody.”

DOES did not return multiple requests for comment regarding the lawsuit.

Ruby began receiving unemployment insurance in June 2019, when she lost her job as a recruiter at a public charter school. Each week, she received a portion of the then-$432 weekly cap for benefits, adjusted based on earnings from a tutoring company she started and worked at part-time.

Ruby’s benefits were set to expire in June. But when the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed in late March, that changed.

Ruby says DOES told her that, under the CARES Act, she was eligible for an additional 13 weeks of UI benefits as well as the additional $600 per week in Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation.

She says DOES also told her she didn’t need to file additional paperwork to get these benefits. And while Ruby did receive full benefits throughout May, she didn’t get them for three weeks in April and two weeks in June.

“I am told so many different things from so many different people,” Ruby says, adding that DOES has told her that her UI claim is expired, and that it’s still open.

“It’s like I’m in a nonstop loop now,” she says.

In the complaint, Ruby says she has spent more than 30 hours on the phone, on email and in DOES webinars in an effort to sort out the issue. The circuitousness of her conversations with the department, combined with worry over paying her bills, has taken a mental toll, she says.

“There’s just no peace of mind because there’s no end in sight,” she says.

Ruby says she received an email Friday from a representative of DOES who said that the three weeks of missed payments in April will be paid out within the next two to three business days. She says the lawsuit, however, will proceed as planned. A hearing is set for September 25.

Like Ruby, many D.C. workers say their efforts to claim unemployment and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) — funding designed for independent contractors, gig workers and other individuals who are not eligible for traditional unemployment, or who have exhausted regular UI benefits — have gone unanswered. Some say they’ve had little clarity on when their benefits are coming — or whether they’re coming at all. Workers throughout the region share similar challenges. Thousands of Maryland and Virginia residents have spent weeks or even months waiting for benefits while state computer systems struggled to keep up with demand or adapt to new provisions under the CARES Act.

As of June 25, 119,270 unemployment claims have been filed in D.C. since March 13. Last week alone, 831 people filed PUA claims in D.C. Nearly 12,000 people had filed continued PUA claims as of June 6.

Al G., who asked to use only his last initial to maintain his family’s privacy, applied for PUA benefits the first week of May, after losing his contract work in property management in early March. As weeks passed without word on his application, the Ward 3 resident says he reached out to DOES multiple times, only to be hung up on or put on hold for hours before the call dropped.

When he finally did get through, he says DOES told him he’d know when he was approved when the money appeared in his account. Yet during other calls, he says he was told his account did not exist, only for it to be found by DOES moments later after he provided his verification number. He says he’s also been asked to resubmit personal records like his driver’s license and Social Security card to a D.C. government email address.

As of June 25, nearly nine weeks after he applied, he says he hasn’t received a dime.

“I don’t have any money. I haven’t made any money since March 7,” Al says. “That’s over three months. And the government has allocated these funds, and D.C. is so disorganized they are unable to get it out. It’s really shameful.”

At around the seven-week mark without any action on his claim, Al says he personally messaged Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At-Large) on Twitter, and after about a week, she responded with a contact in her office, from whom Al hasn’t heard back. A representative for Silverman’s office declined to comment.

Al says he emailed every D.C. Councilmember, as well as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office, and the D.C. Office of the Inspector General — and he says he’s planning on sending another email blast to D.C.’s elected officials.

“I don’t understand why there’s not more of a sense of urgency,” Al says. “It’s outrageously stressful, and I kind of feel like I’m just in limbo. I can’t get any resolution, and there’s a real sense of frustration and anxiety. Everyone I’ve talked to has been super nice, but there’s just no sense of urgency, there’s no feeling that this is a crisis. This is a crisis.”

While Al hasn’t received any money, other workers claim that the PUA benefits they’ve received fall short of what they should be paid.

Jamie, who has asked to be identified by first name only to speak candidly about personal finances, is an international development consultant whose work relies on travel. She filed for PUA benefits on April 27, the day the applications opened, and back-dated them to February 2 (the earliest date to claim PUA benefits).

Jamie says she hasn’t had income since January and hasn’t received any money for those backdated claims. She has received weekly payments of $179, which is the minimum amount that can be paid, and which Jamie says does not reflect her situation or her 1099 tax forms.

“I have spent so much time on the phone with DOES and have reached out to the city — nothing works,” Jamie said via email. She’s been relying on her partner, who is receiving traditional unemployment benefits. “Rent, food, car, utilities, health insurance, taxes. The PUA payments as a whole aren’t enough to even scratch our bills.”

Like Jamie and Al, graduate student Callie Tansill-Suddath — who was approved for traditional unemployment insurance in May — hasn’t seen the money yet. She last worked as a waitress at a D.C. restaurant in January before taking a break to focus on her degree at the University of Maryland. Her plans to pick up shifts over spring break were quashed as the pandemic began to spread and the city shut down.

After filling out weekly claims with no response for more than five weeks, Tansill-Suddath reached out and connected with DOES. She was told she needed to resubmit her tax returns and pay stubs reflecting freelance work she did in Maryland. She filed all of the information again, but hasn’t heard back or received any money since.

Tansill-Suddath is immunocompromised, so she cannot return to work at her restaurant, despite the fact that it’s reopening. Many of the paid internships she’s applied for have been canceled. She received a CARES-funded grant through the University of Maryland, but says she still had to drop her plans to spend an additional semester working toward another degree in her program.

“Financially, the pandemic has thrown everything into a tailspin,” Tansill-Suddath says. “I’ve basically drained my savings.”