Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment.
The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by barge or airplane, making the cost of even basic goods exorbitant. Around 13% of the state’s roughly 735,000 residents received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits - or SNAP - in July, before the troubles began.
“We know a lot of people that are not eating multiple meals a day; they’ve drawn down to maybe a single meal,” said Anthony Reinert, director of programs at the Food Bank of Alaska. There has always “been a baseline of hunger in Alaska. But it’s spread and expanded pretty significantly in the last six months.”
In January, the backlog of applicants seeking to renew food assistance benefits had reached a high of 9,104. Officials hope to clear the recertification backlog this month and turn their attention to thousands of new applications, according to the department. “I was really upset because that was like income that I was depending on, even though it was just food stamps,” said Carney.
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