ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — Things haven’t been easy for Foley resident Stacy Simmons. She is a hard working lady, spending her days cleaning houses along the Gulf Coast.

Until April 2010, that is.

Following the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, things changed. Tourists stopped coming, reservations cancelled, and Simmons way of life took a downhill plunge.

Like hundreds of others in the same situation, Simmons was on hand Tuesday, sitting just a few rows from the front of a packed Orange Beach Community Center, waiting to hear answers from Gulf Coast Claims Facility director Kenneth Feinberg.

“We can’t wait that long,” Simmons responded to Feinberg during his address, outlining the three choices claimants have in the new phase of the process.

Although Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon ran the meeting in business-like fashion, not allowing outbursts from the audience, he stalled a bit when Simmons made her heartfelt plea to Feinberg.

“I can’t pay my rent, they are about to repo my car, I can’t go another day,” Simmons said.

Feinberg, as he has with other in the past, requested that Simmons give him her information and that he would look it over personally.

Without hesitation, the desperate woman approached Feinberg, handing him her paperwork.

That was a week. Has anything changed? Did Feinberg respond to the obvious emergency of Stacy Simmons or any of the other local citizens who followed Simmons, handing Feinberg their information as well?

Simmons has still not received her claims check.

“I called the 800 number once again, after the meeting in order to get the updated status on my claim,” Simmons told Gulf Coast Newspapers. “They said they couldn’t find my claim.”

A distraught Simmons, contacted the local claims office, who pulled up her claim immediately.

“So I called the 800 number back, and gave them the file number and somehow magically, my information suddenly appeared,” Simmons said. “Then, they told me that the reason my claim had not been approved was because I didn’t sign some things that I was supposed to sign.”

Again, after contacting the local claims office, Simmons was told that, indeed, she had done everything that was required. But still, no check.

“The people at the Orange Beach claims office have just been great and have really tried to help me. I just think this whole process is a load of crap. My rent has been due since Oct. 1, my car is in the repossession stage, and I don’t have any work scheduled until March.”

Simmons says before the oil spill event, she never went a week without a check.

Even after talking with Feinberg personally, after putting her claim information into his hands, and after having the Orange Beach office e-mail the GCCF’s office confirming that Stacy Simmons had done everything that was required to get her claim paid, she still has no check and no word as to when her claim may be paid.

“I’ve decided that calling the 800 is really useless. It’s just useless. But I check my status everyday on the computer just to see, but I don’t even know how much longer I can do that. My Internet runs off of my house phone and I expect to have that shut off any day.”