D.C. Residents File Class Action over Delays in SNAP Benefits Program

Four SNAP benefits recipients from D.C. say the program is so dysfunctional that it violates program requirements and their Constitutional rights.

Plaintiffs Shonice Garnett, Richard Messick, Jr., Linda Murph and Tracey Ross are taking action in response to the delayed processing of their applications for food stamps. The alleged delays are happening within the District of Columbia’s Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP.

All four plaintiffs are low-income residents of D.C. They are joined in this SNAP benefits class action lawsuit by co-plaintiff Bread for the City, a non-profit organization that provides comprehensive services, including a food program, to low-income D.C. residents.

In D.C., SNAP benefits are administered by the Department of Human Services’ Economic Security Administration. According to the plaintiffs, the ESA’s delays in the processing of their initial applications and requests for recertification have resulted in delayed delivery of their SNAP benefits. That leaves the plaintiffs without the financial assistance they need to feed themselves and their families, they allege.

Some recipients have also lost their benefits because the D.C. Department of Human Services failed to notify them of their need to apply for recertification, the plaintiffs say.

SNAP benefits are administered through a federally-funded program set up in 1964. Local programs are administered through state and local governmental agencies, which are subject to the program’s requirements set out in federal regulations.

Rules for administering SNAP benefits require the administering agency to give eligible applicants an opportunity to participate in the program within 30 days of their initial application. The administering agency is required to notify households of the need for recertification before the start of the last month of the current certification period.

Plaintiffs say problems started happening in October 2016, when the ESA began rolling out a new computer system. By December of that year, the Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture found many flaws in this supposedly under-tested computer system that would prevent households from receiving their SNAP benefits on time.

Follow-up supervision by the FNS revealed the system was riddled with procedural failures that were putting obstacles between households and their benefits.

The plaintiffs say almost 70 percent of applications were processed late between October and December last year, including 90 percent of applications for expedited benefits. Average application processing times have gone from 20 minutes to 90 minutes, they say.

SNAP clients reported extraordinary wait times and having to make repeated trips to apply for benefits or deal with administrative problems. Call Center data showed a vast increase in reports of missing or delayed benefits and nonfunctioning EBT cards, debit-like cards used to purchase food using SNAP benefits.

Plaintiff Garnett, who has no income and lives in a shelter, says she has not received her EBT card months after applying for benefits. Messick and Murph both say they submitted applications that have been ignored, and Ross lost her benefits for failure to recertify even though she never received a notice of the need to recertify.

The plaintiffs are proposing to represent two plaintiff Classes. The first Class would include all D.C. residents who since June 1, 2016 are applying or will apply for SNAP benefits, in either an initial or recertification application, and whose application will have been delayed beyond the legally mandated timeframe.

The second Class will cover all D.C. SNAP recipients who since June 1, 2016 have been required to submit an application for recertification, who were not given notice of that requirement, and who lost or will lose their SNAP benefits because of that failure to give notice.

They are asking the court for an injunction ordering the defendant to process their SNAP benefits applications within the mandated timeframe, to give existing SNAP recipients the right to reapply in time to receive benefits for the next certification period, and to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing for recipients whose applications are not timely processed.

Plaintiffs’ counsel include attorneys Chinh Q. Le, Jennifer Mezey and Chelsea Sharon of Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia; Marc Cohan, Mary R. Mannix, Travis W. England, and Katherine Deabler-Meadows of National Center for Law and Economic Justice; and Peter R. Bisio, Lance Y. Murashige, and Emily Goldman of Hogan Lovels US LLP.

The District of Columbia Delayed SNAP Benefits Class Action Lawsuit is Garnett, et al. v. Zeilinger, Case No. 1:17-cv-01757, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.