The eyes of the nation have been on SNAP due to the recent government shutdown. But as many from NCLEJ have already said, it’s important to remain engaged because the food benefits crisis is not over. Millions continue to face major delays to their benefits due to agency dysfunction. This is an area that we at NCLEJ are deeply familiar – we are the national leaders in SNAP litigation.
NCLEJ is suing the State of Alaska over their massive SNAP processing delays. On December 31, 2024, we won a preliminary injunction in which the Court ordered the Alaska Department of Public Assistance (DPA) to fix their broken system so that low-income Alaskans can finally get the benefits they are legally entitled to.
In a stunning development, a whistleblower at the Alaska DPA recently submitted a friend of the court brief detailing his first-hand account of agency dysfunction and the improvements in SNAP processing thanks to Court intervention in our lawsuit. The whistleblower said that DPA’s longtime dysfunctional management of public benefits was a “human catastrophe in the making” and that due to the recent orders from the Court, “changes have started to happen in real time.” This whistleblower believes that “this Court is actually doing something for the better,” and requested them to “please continue oversight until DPA becomes fully functional again.”
These comments are a strong condemnation of the State’s dysfunctional management of SNAP, and we welcome this call for continued court oversight.
The National Center for Law and Economic Justice advances racial and economic justice through ground-breaking impact litigation, policy advocacy, and support for grassroots organizing. We have provided legal representation and support since 1965.
