System for Unemployment Benefits Exposes Digital Divide
By Andrew Kenney, Colorado Public Radio
Published May 3, 2021
Lawmakers and President Trump have said they want the checks mailed by April 6. Still, because the Internal Revenue Service has reduced staff at all of its locations because of the coronavirus, many believe the checks may not go out until May. (Photo: iStockphoto / NNPA)
As a social worker with the Denver Public Library, part of Sonia Falcon’s job is to help people in East Denver use government services and benefits. But she’s never seen anything like the unemployment case that has consumed her work since February.
Denver’s tab to rent 800 hotel rooms for homeless hits $27M
These seven hotels are contracted for the city through the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless to house homeless people at high risk or positive for COVID-19. The hotels, clockwise from top left are: Comfort Inn, 401 E. 58th Ave.; Hampton Inn, 1845 Sherman St.; Western Motor Inn, 4757 Vasquez Blvd.; Comfort Inn, 4685 Quebec St.; La Quinta Inn, 3500 Park Ave.; Quality Inn, 2601 Zuni St.; and Aloft Hotel, 800 15th St.
Denver has run up a $27 million hotel tab renting out rooms at hotels for the homeless since last spring. And the nonprofit that runs the program is studying ways to keep it alive even as the pandemic recedes.
Jesse Paul / Colorado Sun
When she was a brand-new legislator besieged by lobbyists at the entrance to the Senate floor, state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger felt a tap on the shoulder from a man telling her she was late for her next committee. She rushed to the elevator, and the man accompanied her all the way to the committee room, securing several minutes of one-on-one time to make the case for his client’s bill.
When Zenzinger pushed open the door to the committee hearing room, there was no one else there. The meeting wasn’t even close to starting.
Now that Zenzinger serves as chair of the Senate Education Committee, education lobbyists don’t have to use creative tactics to get her attention. She meets weekly with key players ranging from the Colorado Education Association to Democrats for Education Reform to go over upcoming bills and hear their concerns.
Like dozens of other states, Colorado is turning to new technology to protect its unemployment system from scammers. The labor department recently enlisted a third-party platform, ID.me, to verify people s identities – a process that requires users to scan their faces with a smartphone s camera, upload photographs of their IDs and, in some cases, wait for hours for a live video interview.
For Falcón and her client, it s turned into a nightmare. They ve spent weeks getting the teacher s vital documents up to date. Eventually, they ll have to find a way to have her use a smartphone, perhaps at a recently reopened library branch. Without the verification, the teacher is locked out of her unemployment benefits and has had to visit food banks to survive.