Former Crozer Health system employees struggle to access unemployment benefits
Michael Winston, a former Crozer janitor, said he has applied for unemployment benefits several times, but keeps getting denied.
"They rejected a lot of people," Winston said. "Everybody that I've talked to, that filed for unemployment…nobody has got an answer."
A total of 2,651 employees were laid off when Taylor Hospital shut down on April 26 and Crozer Chester Medical Center permanently closed on May 2.
Julia Simon-Mishel, supervising attorney at Philadelphia Legal Assistance, said many people face challenges when trying to access unemployment benefits.
"The largest percentage of workers who come to see us there are struggling to get access to an online account," Simon-Mishel said. "They are struggling to set up a username and password, to recover their username and password, to do identity authentication in order to get access to the online portal."
Simon-Mishel co-hosted a webinar Thursday night to help former Crozer employees overcome some of those barriers. Her organization offers free legal services year-round.
"In today's unemployment system, there are a lot of additional requirements for continuing eligibility, and that can trip people up, and that can cause folks to get disqualified along the way or hold up payments," Simon-Mishel said.
Those payments are crucial for many families to make ends meet. Winston, a father of 11, said he'll continue to wait.
"We need that unemployment to get us through, pay our bills, mortgages and stuff like that," Winston said.
Lee Scoratow, attorney for Legal Aid of Southeastern Pennsylvania, said getting started can be the hardest part.
"If people were never familiar and never contemplating applying for unemployment in their lives, then it could be quite a daunting process," Lee Scoratow, attorney for Legal Aid of Southeastern PA, said.
Steps to gain unemployment compensation
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