Help with Mandatory Child Support Claim receiving Public Assistance

I need help. I am a single mother. I have one child, an infant. The father is homeless and in active addiction. He obviously has no income. I received a letter from OCSS saying that I am mandated to cooperate with child support because I receive cash assistance. If I don't cooperate, my cash assistance will be reduced and I will lose Medicaid for myself. There is no domestic violence so I can't get that waiver. I can possibly claim "good cause" but I need evidence for that and honestly, I don't think "my baby's father is going to be really fucking mad at me" counts as a reasonable excuse. I really don't want to reach out to him for child support. I don't want to be the bad guy. I want him to have a relationship with our daughter one day, and even though I'm not sure if he cares about her at all, I want to leave the possibility open to him. However, he told me in the past that if I ever came after him for child support, he would hate me and never speak to our kid or me ever again. He hasn't even met our child, by the way. He said he was on his way when I was at the hospital for my labor induction and never showed up. He essentially abandoned us and chose the drugs and streets over us. He's also still legally married to his wife, and he has another kid whom he doesn't take care of, but he has been active in that child's life on and off in the past. YES, before anyone says it, I made a horrible, stupid mistake having unprotected sex with this guy. We dated for 2 years and we were best friends for a couple of years before that. We spoke about building a real life together. He's 9 years older than me. I really trusted him and loved him. In hindsight, I didn't have a lot of self-respect and I let a lot of red flags go by without a second thought. I know better now and my standards are much higher. Anyway, what should I do? I don't want to seek him out for child support as I said and be the evil baby mom. I don't want him to end up in debt with child support by the time he's able to get out of homelessness, and I don't want him to hate our kid and me. But I also can't lose Medicaid. I applied for a job that I'm anticipating getting and it starts in September. Also, I'm required to comply with work requirements since I receive cash assistance, so I should be working soon anyway. I say all that to mean, I'll probably lose my cash assistance benefits by the end of this year or the next, or they'll be reduced, anyway, but I'm not sure if any of that matters. This is my first experience with anything like this so I apologize for my naivety.