TIFTON, Ga. (WALB) – People are going months without their SNAP benefits, which include food stamps and Medicaid. Officials say it’s because of a backlog of cases.
Georgia state representatives said at the beginning of 2023, 1,100 Department of Family And Children Services (DFACS) workers were hired throughout the state of Georgia, yet people throughout South Georgia said that even coming up here to their county DFACS office is not getting them answers as to why they’re SNAP benefits aren’t coming through.
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“I haven’t had medication in three months and it’s ridiculous,” Michael Nichloson, a Tifton resident. “It’s becoming a difficult situation.”
Nichloson said he’s a Type 2 diabetic who suffers from neuropathy but is living off a fixed income which is why he relies on SNAP. But for three months, those benefits have been delayed with little to no communication coming from officials.
“We want answers. What’s going on? Why is it taking so long for stuff to get done?” he said.
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District 173 State Representative Darlene Taylor brought those same questions to DFACS officials after she said plenty of her constituents in Thomasville and Grady counties have come to her with the same issues.
“I think this has been a hiccup that has really hurt folks,” she said.
She said DFACS officials told her there’s a case backlog because of staffing shortages and the number of Georgians relying on these benefits.
WANF reportedthat the Department of Human Services (DHS), as of Thursday, has 45,774 total pending renewals, 20,792 of which are overdue with 13,141 pending state action.
According to DFACS’ most recent data from 2020, over 76,000 households throughout the 33 counties WALB covers rely on SNAP food stamps a month—with Dougherty County having 13,199 households alone. The number of families who rely on Medicaid a month is nearly just as many, with over 63,000 throughout South Georgia.
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“One of the concerns we have are kids that are out of school. So they won’t have their regular meals at school. So we want to make sure that those SNAP Benefits get to those that are in need, especially at this time of the year,” Taylor said.
Taylor said there are some signs of relief on the way. On Monday, the Georgia Department of Community Health and DHS announcedthat more than $54 million will go towards supporting Medicaid and Peach Tree for Kids. Taylor also said DFACS officials told her they are working overtime and diligently looking to solve the backlog problem.
“They are addressing it. They are working with some of the technology folks to see if there is glitch things that they can do and they’ve improved their dashboard focusing on the oldest first and trying to keep people in order whoever has had an issue first,” she said.
Taylor plans to bring all of these concerns to the Georgia State Legislative session which starts back up in the new year. She said she’s hoping to bring much-needed change to the DFACS division.
“We do recognize this and it’s a sad thing that we’re having to depend on it to begin with. Most people don’t want to have to use these benefits, so we want to make it as speedy as we can,” she said.
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