government can often feel like a machine that operates on its own with constituents left out of the process but every once in a while individuals get a chance to sit down and talk with their representative staff ask them questions and better understand the systems in place around them today was one of those days as residents of New Jersey's 12th congressional district got to sit down with members of congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman's staff to navigate some of the challenges they're facing Melissa Rose Cooper was there Geneva Mendenhall has some concerns about her social security benefits it seems that they are telling me every year that they overpaid me and they're taking more and more money out of my out of my income I'm a person that I like to you know inquire and find out I'm constantly on the phone finding out stuff and talking to different agencies getting help from myself I advocate for myself but today Mendenhall is glad she has the opportunity to do so in person at this event inside the Mercer County Office Park she found out about it two weeks ago after receiving a voicemail from congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman's office I'm glad I came because I see some other organizations or agencies that I want to talk to too like PSEG and the U.S post Office that are part of many federal state county and local agencies offering various assistance to Residents just a One-Stop shop for our constituents you have everything in one room and you have all the representative all the representatives here and it's great for us a canvas and also promote the types of services that people don't have access to Jordan Lewis is the district director for congresswoman Coleman he says it was important to her that residents have a chance to get immediate help they might need they can get hand in hand direct opportunity to speak to Liaisons from each department each agency and also collect and gather information for family members we have things for our seniors we have things for our students and we also have our universities and colleges here too for different programs that people should be aware of Daryl Tucker from the taxpayer Advocate service is working to help residents resolve issues with the IRS a free service he says a lot of people don't even realize is available my office opened about two years ago here in Trenton and we're just trying to bring awareness particularly to the underserved communities and we want to bring awareness and also education to them about filing their tax returns because typically what happens in underserved communities we have tax preparers that come in they prepare returns and a lot of times those returns are not prepared correctly in addition to that they're paying a fee when they could get utilized the irs's Vita program voluntary income tax program to help them prepare their returns and that's free as well so we just want to bring awareness and education and provide any assistance that we can to them to get their issues resolved with the IRS it's great resources for the people in the community and the people in our state other services residents can get assistance include unemployment benefits and passport processing and although this event is just for a day organizes one constituents to know they can always get access by contacting their local Congressional office for NJ Spotlight news I'm Melissa Rose Cooper [Music]