'Nothing you can do except stand here': Public assistance office keeps Alaskans waiting
Jun. 7—A dozen people congregated outside the doors to the Division of Public Assistance office in Anchorage on Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. Case workers weren't scheduled to arrive for another 90 minutes. But the Alaskans outside, wrapped in coats under gray drizzly skies, were already waiting.
Among them was Savannah Lee, who said her agoraphobia and other mental health conditions make waiting in line extremely stressful. Benefits from the Division of Public Assistance are her final hope to avoid homelessness, she said.
"I've been trying to get assistance forever," she said, gesturing to the line of waiting people, which included parents with infant children and the elderly, most waiting with nowhere to sit. The more experienced among them had brought camp chairs. "It's really hard for me to be in public, and they don't offer services for people like me other than this," she said.
Officials with the state Division of Public Assistance — which oversees Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and several other benefits programs in Alaska — say that to avoid a monthslong backlog, applicants should go to one of a handful of offices to meet with a case worker in person. In Anchorage, the state's largest city, the division operates only one site. Every day, dozens line the hall of the University Center Mall, waiting to be seen.
"(Division staff) said that they could put our application in, but it could be weeks. If we wanted to get our case worked the same day, we needed to show up here hours before they open and wait in line, which is what we're doing," said Lee, accompanied by a friend who was assisting her with her application.
"I don't have weeks. I'm going to be homeless in seven days," said Lee, who has an 18-month-old daughter.
Lee is among thousands of Alaskans who rely on the Division of Public Assistance to receive benefits. One in three Alaskans are covered by Medicaid; one in 11 rely on SNAP, previously called food stamps, for monthly stipends that can be used to pay for food items in stores and markets.
The division for years has been struggling to follow state and federal laws governing the programs they administer. According to a recent report from the division, less than half of SNAP applications between November and April were processed within federally required timelines — seven days for expedited applications and 30 days for other applications.
As of May, more than 1,300 had been waiting five months or longer.
Congress is considering new and expanded work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP that might exacerbate the backlog. Verification of new work requirements in Alaska would fall to the same division that already has a monthslong backlog.
"The work requirement itself is extremely administratively burdensome to the agency," said Saima Akhtar, senior attorney with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, which is representing SNAP recipients in class action litigation against the state.
"It's a huge amount of additional documentation and verification in order to determine who is eligible and when and if they are meeting their program requirements," said Akhtar. "Expanding the work requirements means you need to have more workers to keep track of who is meeting their work requirements."
Division of Public Assistance Director Deb Etheridge did not respond to an interview request. Instead, a Department of Health spokesperson responded to questions in an email.
The division "acknowledges the high volume of visitors at our Anchorage office and the challenges that creates for individuals seeking services. We share the public's concern and are actively working on multiple fronts to improve the experience for applicants," wrote spokesperson Alex Huseman.
The Anchorage office reopened in January, after a COVID pandemic-induced closure that began in 2020 and lasted more than four years.
"Like many public service agencies across the country, we have faced hiring and retention challenges, but we remain committed to filling vacancies and building a strong, sustainable workforce," Huseman wrote.
Under Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the Division of Public Assistance cut more than 100 staff positions in 2021 — when a pandemic-era lifting of federal regulations reduced the workload.
Though Huseman said the post-pandemic demand "rebounded — rapidly and significantly," the number of case worker positions remains roughly 25% lower than it was five years ago. Even with fewer funded positions, the division has struggled to fill its ranks, contending with high turnover fueled by a competitive job market and stagnant public sector wages that have not kept up with the cost of living.
"While the number of funded positions remains below pre-2021 levels, the division has been actively working to address current needs by maximizing resources," Huseman wrote.
Akhtar, who has litigated cases against other states over their mishandling of benefits programs, said the "persistent nature" of Alaska's SNAP backlog means the state is not making the systemic changes needed to meet processing requirements.
"There are other states that I have seen with a backlog," she said. But once agencies are made aware of the problem, states have been able to address the underlying causes. In Alaska, there has been "recurrence" of SNAP backlogs since 2022.
"It's been ebbing and flowing, but we haven't seen resolution. We haven't seen the sort of changes that are going to cover a substantial amount of distance," said Akhtar.
That means the agency may not be able to implement the changes needed to adapt to new requirements considered by Congress.
"At the end of the day, it will still come down on some level to having enough warm bodies and enough trained people in place to do the volume of work that is necessary to maintain the caseload," said Akhtar.
Faster 'watching food grow'
Huseman said that the Anchorage office offers priority to clients who are homeless, elderly, have serious medical issues, are disabled, or who traveled a long way to get to the office.
"During busy times, our staff check the line often to find and help these individuals quickly and respectfully," said Huseman. "Our goal is to avoid asking clients to come back another day. Instead, we do our best to find other ways to help them right away."
Some clients — like Lee — still have to wait for hours just to see a case worker who can determine whether they meet the qualifications for same-day assistance.
Those who can spend several hours waiting for a case worker at one of the division's offices are comparatively lucky. In-person services are offered in Anchorage, Wasilla, Fairbanks, Nome, Kenai, Homer, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Bethel and Kodiak. For Alaskans who don't live in these communities and who don't have the ability to travel — including tens of thousands of rural residents off the road system — the only option is to submit paperwork by mail or online.
Shannon Nanalook lives in Togiak, a village of roughly 800 residents in the Bristol Bay region. She has been without monthly SNAP deposits since April, after the state failed to process her renewal application on time. In April, only 18% of recertifications were processed on time by the state, according to a recent report.
Nanalook, a single mother of two, is still waiting. Traveling to a division office is cost-prohibitive. This spring, she planted vegetables.
"Watching food grow would be faster," she said.
Nanalook said she has relied on SNAP ever since she became pregnant with her second child, who is now 3 years old. But in recent years, the annual renewal process has left her without deposits for months at a time. Her son has severe food allergies, which makes feeding her family without SNAP deposits more challenging.
She has tried submitting renewal paperwork both by mail and online. When she has called the division, she has often waited on the line for several hours, only to be told her application is still pending.
"It's the same thing over and over again," she said. "I ask them: Is there anything I can do on my end to help expedite this process? And they say no."
Huseman, with the Department of Health, said the division has "increased our triage staffing to answer calls more quickly and direct callers to the correct resources."
New federal requirements, Nanalook said, would make a bad situation worse.
"Making it harder to apply isn't going to fix nothing," she said.
'Greater accountability'
Supporters of the new work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid — including Alaska's U.S. Rep. Nick Begich — said they would protect the "integrity" of the programs. Begich declined interview requests from the Daily News and did not answer questions on Alaska-specific impacts of the bill.
Some health experts in Alaska, and several state lawmakers, said the end result of the requirements under consideration would be to complicate an already onerous process, thus causing thousands to lose the health and food benefits on which they rely.
"Work requirements literally cannot be implemented in the state of Alaska," Rep. Zack Fields recently said on a podcast hosted by fellow Anchorage Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray. "It would be implemented by the same people to verify SNAP eligibility, where they have a 61% error rate."
Republicans in Congress are looking to make cuts to Medicaid and SNAP spending in order to help finance, in part, the extension of tax cuts sought by President Donald Trump. The budget reconciliation bill would cut taxes by $3.75 trillion and increase the national deficit by $2.4 trillion in the next decade, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The office also estimated the bill would eliminate health insurance for 10.9 million people across the country.
The budget reconciliation bill, known as the "Big Beautiful Bill," is now under consideration by the U.S. Senate.
Alaska U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, have raised some concerns over funding cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Both have acknowledged that cuts to the programs could have far-reaching consequences while remaining open to the prospect of work requirements, as long as states have flexibility in implementing them.
Approached last Sunday with questions about changes to Medicaid, Sullivan refused to answer and walked away.
His office declined an interview request later in the week. Instead, his spokesperson Amanda Coyne offered a written statement by email, in which she said that Sullivan "generally supports work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP, with commonsense exceptions, such as for recipients who have mental health conditions, or who live in rural areas where employment options are limited."
"While the Senator supports greater accountability in these programs, he will work with the state, which will be implementing the requirements, to ensure that paperwork and administrative burdens do not prevent people from accessing the safety net programs they need," Coyne wrote.
In addition to expanded work requirements in SNAP, lawmakers are considering transferring some of the costs of the program from the federal government to states. In Alaska, that could mean an added annual cost of roughly $69 million from the state treasury.
The increased cost for the state is particularly high because the bill is written to penalize states with higher SNAP error rates. Alaska's SNAP error rate is among the highest in the country.
Transferring some costs to the state could incentivize the state to do a poor job of processing benefits, said Akhtar, with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice.
"If I have to pay 5% or 10% of the cost of the benefits that go out, that incentivizes me to give fewer benefits out," she said. "That creates yet another incentive not to process applications and not to get the job done, because it will cost me more money, if I am the state."
Coyne wrote that Sullivan "understands that the SNAP program is a critical lifeline for low-income families in Alaska."
"Alaska's vast size and many remote communities create unique challenges in administering the program in the state, resulting in higher error rates," Coyne wrote by email. "Sen. Sullivan and his team have been working with the state to address this error rate. He is also working to ensure any changes to SNAP in the reconciliation bill take Alaska's unique needs into account and continue to deliver benefits to eligible Alaskans."
Murkowski declined an interview request on Republican-backed changes to Medicaid and SNAP.
In a statement, her spokesperson, Joe Plesha, said Murkowski "has been consistent from the beginning of the reconciliation process about how important the Medicaid and SNAP programs are to families in Alaska. She is in close discussions with her colleagues to advocate for these safety net programs on which many Alaskans rely."
'It isn't worth my time'
Leo Gant, a 69-year-old, leaned heavily on a cane after joining the Division of Public Assistance line in Anchorage at 7:45 a.m., preparing for at least two hours of waiting before he reached the desk of a case worker.
"Why they only have the one (office) here in Anchorage — I don't understand," he said.
Gant, who lives with his niece in Anchorage, relies on Medicaid to cover the cost of pricey medications for diabetes and high blood pressure. He recently underwent surgeries on his knee and shoulder.
"We'll see how long my knees and my back hold up until I walk out and come back again tomorrow," he said.
Gant previously received SNAP benefits but said he had stopped applying because the process had become so cumbersome.
"They don't pay enough to mess with coming here and getting it renewed," said Gant. "It isn't worth my time standing here in this line."
But without Medicaid, he said he wouldn't be able to afford the medications he needs. So he must return every year. Under the bill considered by Congress, he may need to prove his continued eligibility for Medicaid twice a year, instead of once.
Supporters of the measure say that it is meant to weed out fraud and abuse. For Alaska, that could mean additional strain on a workforce of eligibility technicians — half of whom left the division last year.
"They can definitely figure out a different system," said Gant, who previously tried applying for benefits online. "Sometimes, I've been on the phone for six hours or more before I finally get tired."
"There's nothing you can do except stand here," he said.
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