A sign posted on the door of the Division of Public Assistance office in Bethel, Alaska, on Oct. 11, 2023. The office offers full services. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
At the height of the food stamp backlog last November, pro bono attorneys and other volunteers at Alaska Legal Services got more than 600 requests in one month from Alaskans seeking a fair hearing to get their overdue food benefits.
So the 97 requests that came in this July didn’t feel like anything the group couldn’t handle, said Leigh Dickey, the nonprofit’s advocacy director.
But the number is still alarming, she said, and it’s double last month’s requests.
Dickey said the state’s Division of Public Assistance is still dogged by the same problem: paperwork processing delays.
“Which is something the DPA, I think, is saying that they have fixed,” she said. “But we are still seeing clients coming in who have delays at recertification.”
Lawmakers and the governor have funneled more than $70 million into tech solutions and new staff, but many Alaskans say they still can’t get their paperwork processed. The Division of Public Assistance, which processes the paperwork, said it now completes 89% of applications on time. That is a significant improvement over January through April of last year, when only about 5% of food stamp recertifications were on time.