Losing a paycheck is hard enough without a scavenger hunt for which agency holds what. Food help in Louisiana comes from the health department. So does cash assistance, and so does the subsidy paid to relatives raising somebody else's child.

SNAP is run at the state level by the Louisiana Department of Health, and its Office of Economic Stability holds SNAP, the Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program, the Kinship Care Subsidy Program and Disability Determination Services in one division. The Department of Children and Family Services keeps the Kinship Navigator Program, an information and referral network for relatives, grandparents and other close adults raising children who aren't their own. For somebody in another state, start from the index.

One application covers SNAP, cash assistance and kinship care

The Application for Assistance that starts a SNAP claim also starts FITAP and the Kinship Care Subsidy Program, so it's one filing instead of three. It goes in through the CAFÉ portal, by phone, or on a printed form you fax, mail or drop off in person. Once it lands, a department employee calls you for the interview, or you can ask for a face-to-face appointment at a parish office.

Two things are worth getting right before you file. Benefits are paid back to the date of your application, so a form approved three weeks from now still pays from the day you sent it. And Louisiana treats income that stopped within the last three months as its own verification item, with a pink slip, a termination notice or a statement from your former employer named as the proof. Find yours first. Your unemployment award letter goes in the same pile, listed as other income the department verifies.

The clock Louisiana puts on a SNAP decision

The state publishes what it owes you on timing, worth knowing before a counter tells you otherwise. You have the right to get an application when you ask for one, to hand it back the same day you got it, and to have benefits or a refusal within 30 days of turning it in.

If you're eligible and have little or no money, that 30 days becomes 7. There's a right to a fair hearing too, whenever you disagree with an action on your case, covering a refusal, a cut and a closure alike.

What comes off your income before Louisiana counts it

Most households take a gross income test and a net income test, though a household with somebody sixty or older, or drawing certain disability payments, takes only the net one. Between them sits a list of deductions, and one matters more than it looks after a layoff. Dependent care counts when you're paying for the care of a child or an incapacitated adult so that somebody in the household can work, look for work, or attend school or training. Job hunting qualifies.

Shelter costs above a share of what's left after the other deductions come off as well, and a household with an elderly or disabled member has no cap on that one. There's a resource test too, though households where anyone gets FITAP, Kinship Care or STEP benefits, and individuals drawing SSI, sit outside it.

Getting paid and the nine-month card rule

Benefits arrive by electronic transfer on the Louisiana Purchase Card, the state's name for its EBT card. Case information sits in the CAFÉ Customer Portal, where you check an application's status, file a change report, or start a redetermination at renewal.

Money left on the card doesn't sit there forever. Southeast Louisiana Legal Services has flagged a change under which unused SNAP, FITAP and Kinship Care money comes off the card nine months after it was issued, even if you've used the card for something else in the meantime, and what comes off can't be added back. If you've been stretching benefits by saving them, check that one first.

Cash assistance comes with a work program attached

FITAP is the cash side of the same application, and it comes with a condition attached. Work-eligible FITAP families may have to take part in Strategies to Empower People, the state program that wraps job training, employment help and supportive services around the payment. SNAP carries its own requirement, since able-bodied adults have to register for work and accept suitable employment, though there are exceptions.

None of that replaces what your unemployment claim asks. If you're drawing unemployment insurance in Louisiana, its work-search rules run on their own schedule and get judged separately.

Medicaid, LaCHIP and help with an employer premium

The Bureau of Health Services Financing runs Medicaid in Louisiana, with regional offices for in-person help, and you can apply by mail, by phone, in person at a local Medicaid office, or online. Coverage renews once a year and the department mails a notice when it's time, so answer that letter quickly. A denial can be appealed, either by mail to Medicaid or to the Division of Administrative Law's Department of Health Section, or by phone to Medicaid customer service.

You don't have to face the form alone. Louisiana has approved application centers around the state that interview people and complete Medicaid applications.

If you're an eligible Medicaid recipient with an employer plan available to you, LaHIPP can pay some or all of your share of that premium when doing so costs the state less than covering you outright. And LaCHIP covers uninsured children up to age 19 at no cost, with the condition that the child can't already be insured.

Storm season changes what food help looks like in Louisiana

D-SNAP opens after a disaster for households who don't normally get SNAP and need help buying groceries after lost income or damage. Lost income counts as a disaster-related expense in its own right, which is how a household earning too much in an ordinary month can land inside the limits after a storm.

If you already get SNAP, it runs the other way around. Current recipients typically aren't eligible for D-SNAP and shouldn't apply, and any extra benefits for them go through a separate process. What does reach you is replacement benefits for food lost in a power outage of 24 straight hours or more.

Energy help and rental listings both sit with the Louisiana Housing Corporation. Its LIHEAP program can pay toward a heating or cooling bill, cover a crisis bill, or repair or replace the equipment itself. To apply you have to be responsible for the household energy bill and have an active heating or cooling account, and you get one benefit per season, with heating, cooling and crisis run as separate seasons.

The help is subject to eligibility and funding, and local agencies keep taking applications until that season's money is gone, so early in a season beats late in one. A crisis appointment isn't an online request either. It goes through the corporation's partner agency in your parish. For somewhere to live, the corporation points renters at LAHousingSearch.org, its free statewide rental search.

Where Louisiana Works can actually help

Louisiana Works runs the American Job Centers, where the useful part of the service list is its unglamorous end. Assessments, job counseling, placement referrals, job search workshops, labor market information, and access to computers, a fax and a copier, no small thing once the home printer dies. HiRE is the state's online system for searching jobs, building a resume and finding training providers.

One of its rules deserves a second read. Claimants drawing unemployment are randomly selected for reemployment services, and once you're selected, taking part is mandatory. Missing the deadline in that notice brings an automatic disqualification that lasts until you comply. So treat any letter about a reemployment appointment as the one you open first.

Rapid Response aims at workers caught in major layoffs and plant closings, with orientation sessions covering reemployment, retraining and support services. If your employer's name has turned up in Louisiana's layoff filings, ask whether a session has been scheduled for your site. Community action agencies funded through the Community Services Block Grant sit alongside all of it, each with its own range, which can run to transportation, housing, income management, energy costs, nutrition, emergency food and shelter, and training.

Southeast Louisiana Legal Services handles free civil legal aid for low-income people across southeast Louisiana, out of seven offices covering 22 parishes, and its work runs to housing, medical care access, employment and education. That's a region rather than the whole state, so north or west of it, start at LouisianaLawHelp. Its Civil Legal Navigator gives customized legal information, local court forms and referrals to legal aid, with a topic for unemployment benefits and job loss. It says plainly that what it gives is information rather than advice.

If a state tax bill is what's keeping you awake, the Louisiana Taxpayer Access Point takes a payment plan request alongside filing and paying, which is a smaller thing than ignoring the letter.

When the question fits no single program, Louisiana 211 is the network for it, eight nonprofits covering all 64 parishes with information about health and human services nearby. Our own list of what to do first covers the parts of this that aren't specific to Louisiana.