Sometimes it seems to be better to list all suspected items then let them do the elimination. I think what happens is that they have a way of feeding the forms into a scanner that searches just the number of boxes checked. It spits out anything that meets the criteria for the purpose of the funding and generates a form letter for the ones that do not qualify. All & all a good way to sift through a large quantity of requests. Let a machine do the first sort. I think what happens though is sometimes a live person uses the same methods. In your case I think it sounds like the person you talked to was doing this. Do they have an appeal process or a supervisor that you can talk to?

Good luck!