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New MyCOBenefits smartphone app streamlines state benefits process

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July 5, 2018, 9:21 am

Colorado Department of Human Services officials want Eagle County residents – and people all over the state, really – to know that it just got a lot easier to keep track of the various benefits programs available to them via the brand-new MyCOBenefits smartphone app.

MyCOBenefits app

The new MyCOBenefits smarthphone app.

Lena Harris-Wilson, director of the CDHS Division of Food and Energy Assistance, told the Vail Daily the new app will make it much easier for families enrolled in food, work and adult financial programs to track and maintain their benefits.

People still have to apply for assistance via the state’s Program Eligibility and Application Kit (PEAK) website or at a county office, but the new app – available for both iPhones and Android devices – will allow people to track their benefits, maintain eligibility remotely by uploading photographed documents and receive text and email notifications through their phones.

Both the new MyCOBenefits app and the PEAK website are available in English and Spanish. PEAK allows people to apply for a whole host of programs that people may not think they’re eligible for, especially in a high-cost-of-living area like Eagle County, Harris-Wilson said.

Those programs include SNAP-Ed [food assistance], TANF [Colorado Works], Adult Financial, senior assistance, referrals for the WIC [Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children] program and a portal for national school lunch programs, to name a few. LEAP [Low-income Energy Assistance Program] will be joining the PEAK system in November.

“The app is to monitor and provide information so that your benefits may continue, so it shows information about any transactions you’ve made with your [EBT] benefit card and it allows you to look at history and current balances,” Harris-Wilson said of MyCOBenefits. “It allows you to upload documents to the county to make sure that your case can continue to move forward and simplifies that process so that clients don’t have to go into a county office for that support.”

That could be huge in Eagle County, where it’s often difficult to get around, especially in the winter, Harris-Wilson said. She also thinks more people in the Vail Valley are eligible for assistance but don’t necessarily apply for benefits for a variety of reasons.

“What you’ll see for your area, with the high cost of living, people who submit for benefits will be able to take advantage of their housing costs being more because that affects their benefit amount,” Harris-Wilson said. “Once we can message to them that they can actually get a deduction based on their cost of living there, people may see that it’s more advantageous to apply versus feeling like it’s not worth it.”

Last month, the caseload in Eagle County for the SNAP food program alone was 534 families.

“I feel like there are a probably a lot more people who are eligible and have just not signed up because they don’t understand that we factor in the cost of housing and utilities and other factors as well,” Harris-Wilson said.

Once people do apply and start receiving benefits, the new MyCOBenefits app, which first became available June 10, will streamline the process of maintaining and monitoring those benefits – both for clients and county administrators.

“With this app, customers and county employees will have instant access to resources they want and need,” said Megan Rymski, a project manager for CDHS. “It will reduce trips to county offices and increase both the customers’ and the counties’ efficiency in maintaining eligibility.”

For information on the new MyCOBenefits app, click here. For information or to apply for benefits via the PEAK website, click here.

 

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.