It took us almost a year to be approved for rental assistance.  It should not have been so difficult.  The problem is, is that no one properly explained what we really needed to bring because there was always another document missing.  It was so very frustrating.  When we finally got approved, we were elated.  But that was short lived. The Israeli System does not prepare you for the hiccups along the way.  After a period of time the money stopped coming in.  We assumed that was it, we were no longer eligible. After a few months, we tried to speak to them by phone.  We called the Ministry of Housing – Rental Assistance representative but she too was not very helpful.  So, we decided to go in to branch and only then, did we learn that we were actually losing monthly rental payments because we were still eligible.  But nobody told us, no letter was received.  And, the worst of it was, that they no longer offered retroactive payments.  So now we have lost months and months of rental income that we rightly should have gotten.   I can sit here and write about all of our trials, but the bottom line is that Shira got it done.  She explained what we needed to do to reapply quickly, what we needed to do to stay current in the system, and most important of all, was how to look out for ourselves so that this would not happen to us again in the future.