When Kendahl Stevens* tried to file for unemployment benefits after losing her job, she got stuck in a cycle of frustrating phone calls with three different government agencies.

Ms. Stevens and her family live in Virginia, and she worked in DC for a company headquartered in New Jersey — and all three locations told her they couldn’t help.

“I went to Virginia, who told me to go to DC, and DC told me to go to New Jersey, and New Jersey told me to go back to DC,” she said. “I tried calling multiple times a week. I was harassing them as best as I could and getting nowhere.”

With her job as a program analyst for a government contractor, Ms. Stevens was the primary breadwinner for her family of five: three sons ages 7, 4, and 2, and her husband, a disabled military veteran. When the project she was working on ended earlier than planned and she lost her income, she was worried about the immediate impact on her family and their future.

“We didn’t qualify for food stamps or anything like that, and I was going to have to drain my boys’ savings accounts to apply for any other support,” she said.

After several weeks of trying to resolve the issue on her own, Ms. Stevens reached out to Legal Aid DC in April 2024 and connected with Legal Aid Staff Attorney Eric Swenson.

“I can tell you that as soon as I talked to him the first time, I felt like I actually had some hope of getting somewhere,” Ms. Stevens said.

Pressing for Accountability

Eric said when he got involved in the case, Ms. Stevens had done everything she could to advocate for herself, but the way her claim was being passed from place to place was a “comedy of errors and misunderstandings.”

“She was very proactive and tried to solve this problem. These are typically cases that the client hasn’t been able to resolve by going into the office, calling the call center, or going online,” Eric said. 

Eric determined that the DC Department of Employment Services (DOES) should have processed Ms. Stevens’ unemployment benefits, rather than the agencies in Virginia or New Jersey. With that clarity, he was able to escalate Ms. Stevens’ case to the general counsel’s office at DOES, submit her documents, and request a resolution on her behalf. 

Over the next few weeks, things began clicking into place with Ms. Stevens’ unemployment benefits. She was approved for unemployment from DOES moving forward and received a partial payment for the previous few weeks. Then, after more follow-up conversations with both her and Eric, DOES paid Ms. Stevens the rest of the back benefits she was owed. 

“She and her family were really in a tough spot, and we were able to get in and make sure that she got the back benefits for the weeks that she had been dealing with the bureaucracy, which is something that’s often forgotten but was very important for her,” Eric said.

In all, Ms. Stevens received nine weeks’ worth of unemployment benefits totaling nearly $4,000.

“If it weren’t for Eric, I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't have any payments,” Ms. Stevens said. 

Unemployment benefits provided an important safety net to care for her family while also searching for a new job. In July, Ms. Stevens started a new position with the federal government and went back to work full-time. 

She said she’s grateful that Legal Aid was able to step in and help her get the answers and support she needed during a difficult time. 

“It took a lot of work on Eric's part and my part to keep people accountable. It was just a relief having somebody that could work on my behalf,” she said.

*A pseudonym has been used in this story to protect the client’s privacy