- Video shows the struggle that one farm worker has experienced while trying to receive financial assistance from a government program.
- Speaking with the company in charge of distributing funds, who say they currently have a wait list of over 1,600 applicants and are currently calling back applicants from August.
- UPDATE - This story was filmed November 29. We have received an updated statement from Service Center Manager for Proteus Inc. Martha Loya stating, "Proteus has assisted Tulare and Kern County immigrants who suffered as a result of the storms in December 2022, through March 2023. A total of 936 families have been served. Just now the funding source has asked us to stop our wait list because we have over 2000 people on it."
Earlier in the year, I covered the floods that affected the town of Pond, but not too far in Delano — some farm workers there were out of jobs and struggling to make ends meet.
Months later, a grant designed for storm assistance became available for those affected. However, one woman I spoke with says she’s been trying for months to receive assistance from the UFW Foundation but hasn’t gotten that help.
“When I asked for help they were just very rude. I remember there was this one instance where the girl, the supervisor, someone that’s supposed to be helping she actually made me cry cause she didn’t — in her words she didn’t care what I was going through,” said the woman.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, says her struggle with the UFW Foundation started in August with her initial phone calls but says no one reached back out until October 31st. However she says she was met with rude responses from the Foundation along with miscommunication when it came to her required documents.
“She told me that it wasn’t enough that I needed to bring more papers and she told me to bring pay-stubs of every single week that I worked. So, I had to come back and she told me to come back at 2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. and I went back and I showed her the pay-stubs that I could give her and she was very — she was very picky about it,” said the woman.
She says the back and forth travels from Bakersfield to Delano became too much for her financially and believed it wasn’t fair as she was already financially unstable.
“If you’re trying to call and you’re not getting the service that you think you need or that you’re not being treated fairly, you can always call the supervisor ask to speak to a supervisor. My office for Tulare county is (559) -781 - 1852,” said Service Center Manager for Proteus Inc. Martha Loya.
Loya says she wants to assure applicants that their overall goal is to assist people.
Loya says theres many different factors that might play into this miscommunication — with a waitlist of over 1,600 people and only two workers going through the list. However, since the grants release in June, they have made some progress.
“We have served 630 families and what that amounts to is, we have issued over 1 million — it’s actually 1.34 million out of Porterville office alone,” said Loya.
Currently, applications are still open however Loya says they’re still calling back applicants from August and wants the public to know they are still trying to reach as many people as possible.
Like farm worker Maria Guadalupe, who applied for the application after struggling to find work during the storms.
“Yeah they put me on the wait list and it didn’t take long for me to get the phone call to come to the appointment, I brought the papers that were asked of me and they just called me to come by and pick up my check,” said Guadalupe.
Guadalupe says the process was confusing at first but says she was never met with rude assistance. She says this help means a lot to her and relives her of any financial stressors. Something our previous applicant is still struggling with and wants others to know that immigrants are people too and deserve to be treated with kindness.
“The reassurance that, to know that we could like finally pay for our own food was like was really good to know that we didn’t have to owe people or keep rationing our food,” said the woman.
Loya says they are still working on call backs but in the meantime wants to remind people of what documents are needed for the grant.
“Have a valid ID, photo ID, we ask them for check stubs so that they can show it was affected - their work was affected,” said Loya. “They don’t need to be farm workers, they can be anyone who was affected and undocumented.”
Although there was a proposed end date to the grant — it is currently up in the air and Proteus Inc. says they’ll keep calling applicants until they’re told to stop. For more information on the Storm Assistance for Immigrants Grant — visit their website.
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:
