About a year ago Jamilyn Fenn realized she was assisting a number of seniors in the Seward area to submit applications for benefits from food stamps. The seniors thought that their applications were not being accepted in reality, however they were stuck with the states queue of food stamps in the State’s Supplemental Food Assistance Program.
Fenn is the finance administrator of The Qutekcak Native Tribe, but she’s also a pro-bono legal representation of Alaska Legal Services. She’s not completed the bar exam for the state. She’s a specially-trained volunteer who helps people across Alaska get through the system of legal justice, with guidance by lawyers from Alaska Legal Services through the community justice worker program. The program caters to a range of demands, such as those that are related to federal legislation, such as the Indian Child Welfare Act.
“They provide non-lawyers such as myself the power to represent clients in specific ways,” Fenn said. “Like advocates for victims of domestic violence, SNAP benefits representative, and finally, ICWA representative. I also create wills and trusts.”
Alaska Legal Services reached out to her and requested to take on food stamp cases originating from across the state. She also asked for help aiding her tribe members in navigating their benefits. Fenn estimates that she assisted about 75 people receive fair hearings, as well as their food stamps.
“I have paid one family $19,996 back in installments,” she said. “Back on April 1, that was the highest amount Alaska Legal Services has ever achieved.”
The state is progressing in working through the backlog of cases however, the majority of Alaskans remain in the waiting room. Fenn stated that she received five requests for fair hearing in the last week alone.
She’s one of the volunteers who helped Alaska Legal Services’ staff attorneys file fair hearing appeals on behalf of nearly two thousand Alaskans in order to obtain their food stamps. In the midst of the backlog in February the agency received nearly 500 requests for assistance with food stamps. This month, it’s down to 166. In the past, at this time they had five.
August Amy worked for Alaska Legal Services before she started her own business of consulting in Anchorage and claimed she enrolled in the community justice worker program at the time it first began. She explained that the vast majority of cases she’s dealt with aid people to get food stamps, which is challenging emotionally.
“We’ve been told reports of dogs eating snacks in the villages since they’re starving,” she said. “I’ve heard of stories from various food banks of having shelves that are empty.”
The state is required to give food stamps to applicants in 30 days after submitting an application, but she noted that wait times typically exceed the amount. The state should be able to issue the emergency application — which is a benefit for those without money or food within one week. She says the majority of applications she’s encountered are waiting for up to a month.
“They’re entitled to these benefits due to their income and not having them means that they’re paying rent, they’re stealing from childcare — which means they’re likely to be working longer and taking money from the utilities” she explained. “All these are the potential to be risky for their wellbeing, don’t they? For instance the possibility that their benefits are cut and they’re wasting all their funds that were allocated to food stamps to pay for something else that’s a risky situation to be in.”
Amy says she’s helped around 30 families obtain food stamps in the month of February. Amy said it’s both heartwarming and a bit worrying. A few families contact her afterward.
” It’s so nice to be able to claim their benefits, and they’re eager to keep you updated and inform you that they actually fed their children today, and that they had a great food,” she said. “It’s not an ordinary update to receive. We don’t contact people to say, ‘Hey I had a delicious lunch yesterday.'”
Amy receives a few of food stamps a week, but she said the there has been a slowdown in the number of cases since the peak she witnessed in February in which she was receiving up to six or five cases per week.
Sarah Carver, a senior attorney at Alaska Legal Services, said there are over 200 volunteers across the state, spread across many communities, however a small group of 10 people handled the majority of the cases involving food stamps this year. She is the director of the Justice for All program that provides training to individuals such as Fenn or Amy about how to fight in favor of fair and impartial hearings.
“Everything is handled by Alaska Legal Services, but they are the one who is on the ground providing the legal services with us on the back,” she said. “Community justice workers can perform exactly the same job on these SNAP cases that attorneys are able to do. They are doing the same job just as efficiently.”
A few of the volunteers are associated with tribes or the health system as behavioral health professionals. Others work in shelters for victims of domestic violence or homeless shelters or in conjunction with seniors in community centers.
Carver declared that Justice is meant to be a place in which everyone is treated with equal respect, however “we recognize that it doesn’t work this way, particularly in the world of civil. Since in civil matters there is no right the right to an attorney when you can’t afford one.”
She noted that the community justice professionals who were educated to assist people with fair hearings regarding food stamps are vital in addressing the “huge backlog” of backlog. The internal department, Alaska Legal Services didn’t have the capacity to handle the volume of fair hearing requests. She also said that community justice workers were helpful in educating people about the delay on food stamps is not legal.
“A majority of people were unaware that the fact that benefits aren’t delayed isn’t simply an administrative issue, it’s an issue with the law,” Carver said. “And the law provides legal recourses due to the fact that there are laws which govern how the program is to be managed.”
