*This post is edited and revised from the original version published in 2016 on my first blog Search for Sonder.
If you have done any research into what to expect when you move to France for TAPIF, then you’re already well-acquainted and appropriately afraid of Caf. After spending six months battling Caf myself, I’m still in disbelief that I actually came out intact.
Caf, or the Caisse d’allocations familiales, is the government housing assistance program in France. In theory, this is a wonderful government program that helps a lot of low-income households pay their rent. In reality, any help you receive will come at the unexpected cost of your peace of mind. Brace for months of frustration, paperwork, and arguments in poor French to the audience of an entire waiting room, so that maybe, just maybe, you too can survive your battle with Caf.
Is Caf even worth it?
First and foremost, sit yourself down and have a long hard think with your calculator if Caf is the right choice for you. I know plenty of TAPIF assistants who already have a low rent, so they haven’t bothered with Caf at all. If you’re only paying 100 euros a month, seriously consider opting out of Caf completely and save yourself the headache and frustration in order to focus on greener pastures, like lesson planning and travel.
If you’re like many TAPIF assistants and need Caf assistance in order to eat every month and still travel on our numerous vacations, make sure you open your dossier immediately. Once you have your living situation figured out, get yourself to the nearest Caf office and pick up some paperwork. You will not be entitled to any aid for months prior to the creation of your dossier.
One TAPIF assistant had been putting this off for months and came to the terrible discovery when she finally opened her dossier in January that she wouldn’t be getting any money for the 3 months she’d already spent in France. In her case, that was a 900 euro mistake.
My hopeful beginning
I was lucky enough to have my responsable set me up in a foyer in Beauvais before I even arrived. Lucky me had a built-in support staff to help me with this process. It also meant I had to walk by them everyday and face their disappointment as I continued to struggle with Caf. But we’ll get to that later on.
Within the first week of the great arrival of all eight TAPIF assistants living in this foyer, Melanie (the terrifying and confusing queen of the foyer) took us all to the basement, sat us down, and helped us complete our Caf applications line by line. She collected our applications, all our required documents, and our unwavering optimism and went to Caf herself to set up all our dossiers. How easy, we all thought! Thirty minutes in a basement and everything’s taken care of!
Oh, how naive we were.
Over the month of October, we all received various amounts of mail from Caf, all at different times and all different letters. We all entered this process the exact same way, and already Caf had thrown each of us a different wrench. We had anticipated this, however, so we all happily took our copies to Melanie so she could turn in our paperwork. Simple, easy-peasy. Our optimism was still uncrushed.
(One of) the downsides of foyer living
Living in a foyer has different rules than apartment living for Caf, notably, who receives the aid money. Typically, the tenant receives the money directly from Caf and uses it to pay their rent to their landlord. In the foyer, the aid money goes to the foyer itself. Suddenly, you’re in the weird position of having to decide if you’re going to pay the monthly rent as normal and receive a big refund check from the foyer when the money comes through, or ride off the foyer’s faith in the Caf system and act as if Caf has gone through paying a reduced rent, even when it hasn’t.
We didn’t get a choice, but I can definitely tell you which one I recommend.
Alex, Melanie’s red-headed, man-bun wearing, bearded equal in the office, had us pay the full month of rent for October and used the extra money that we paid, that Caf would eventually cover, to pay the after-Caf rent in the subsequent months. Confused? Us too. We were simply told, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ To which we replied, ‘…okay?’ For a few confused months we simply didn’t pay rent, despite our Caf dossiers still being blocked. Which was admittedly really nice, albeit worrisome.
Dominos start to fall
Everything changed when Alex quit.
He was leaving to be closer to his family, which is all well and good, but he was in charge of all the TAPIF assistants! And it immediately became clear that he never really communicated with Melanie about our situation.
Now well into winter, all the TAPIF assistants were going into Caf roughly every other week, asking about the state of our dossiers, handing in our birth certificates for the fifth time, and simply asking ‘pourquoi?’ repeatedly and without an end in sight. By February, half of us had received October aid, a few had October through December, and the rest had nothing. And none of us had paid rent in four months. Suddenly we were receiving rent slips in our mailboxes saying we owed hundreds of euros, some even up to €1700. Panic ensued.
We spent one whole afternoon taking turns talking to Melanie and everyone left with a different outcome. Some, like me, paid nothing, others paid twenty euros, some sixty euros. We finished that day even more confused than we started it. But now the threat was real: get your Caf unblocked or pay up.
Always, always, continue paying your rent. Even if they tell you it’s fine, don’t worry – insist. It’s horrifically nerve-wracking to be put in this position. Two days later, we left for February break. All of us were gone for two weeks without any way to contact the foyer or Caf. What swell timing, we thought.
One step forward, three steps back
I had gone into Caf the day before we left and found out that I finagled my November and December money. How exciting! Little by little I made progress, until I got back from holiday and saw online that I would be getting no money for 2016.
Pas. de. tout.
That was unacceptable.
I went into the Caf office, armed with my entire file folder and practicing French sentences over and over in my head. Once my turn came, I asked about the state of my dossier and why 2016 was blocked. The unfortunate worker I dealt with that day told me I was entitled to nothing in 2016, pas de tout.
Well, I thought, this will not stand.
So for five minutes, in front of the entire waiting room in the Beauvais office of Caf, I fought with this woman until she told me why. According to them, I made too much money in 2015. One thing I was not warned about before TAPIF was the bulletin de paye (paycheck) we receive monthly, which states our income and taxes. Particularly, how October and November would share a single paycheck.
The assistance you receive from Caf is based on your monthly income level, so having the correct amount on your bulletin de paye is critical in order to receive your full compensation. For some reason, despite every single TAPIF assistant in France having the exact same payslip, despite the attestations we armed ourselves with explaining the situation, and despite telling this to every worker we talked to, this was the hardest concept for Caf to comprehend. Every month we had to return, again and again, explaining that no, we didn’t earn a ridiculously high monthly wage.
The last stand
So, for what felt like the hundredth time, I whipped out all four payslips I had, plus the attestation, and spent another five minutes explaining in simpler and simpler terms how wrong she was. She kept repeating that those forms weren’t on file, but I persisted. Finally, she looked at her computer screen and said ‘ah! Voilà cette attestation.’
At last! Acknowledgment of the paperwork I turned in five months ago! Then I stood for another five minutes as she typed, with pain-staking precision, a message into the unknown depths of Caf.
But it was done.
Within two days I received the news: my Caf is completely unblocked! My aid was coming all the way through March. I sent the paperwork to Melanie and received a ‘YOUPII!!!’ in response, the most enthusiasm I had ever heard from Melanie. Free at last!
It took me a full five months, including a dozen trips to the Caf office and endless frustration, but I had survived Caf. One by one, the other girls in the foyer were getting the same news. A week after my news, Melanie had apparently called the chef of Caf and personally sorted everyone’s dossiers. Melanie is terrifying, but it’s nice to have her on your side.
I still haven’t heard about April, though. If I’m lucky, it’ll come through once April actually starts. Otherwise, my battle with Caf may not actually be over. What a miserable thought. (Good news from the future: I didn’t have any problems with Caf for the rest of my contract. The foyer said they’d close our dossiers, so that’s entirely their problem now.)
Anyone else have similar experience with Caf or any advice for Caf newbies? Has anything changed since 2016 – for better or worse? Read more about my TAPIF experience!
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