Federal court orders Missouri to take action to improve SNAP
This article was originally published in KOMU. Read it here.
COLUMBIA — A federal court ordered the Missouri Department of Social Services to implement new guidelines on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to increase program enrollment after complaints of long hold times and difficulties making appointments. SNAP provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget.
In the order, Judge Douglas Harpool said the department “has failed, and continues to fail, to administer the program.”
Katharine Deabler-Meadows, a staff attorney representing the plaintiffs, said previous SNAP operations have led to the necessity of this order.
“There’s a lot of dropped calls, really long wait times,” Deabler-Meadows said. “The clients in this litigation were people who tried to get through the call center many many times and were not able to connect with a person, and as a result had their SNAP applications denied, even though based on that application, they were eligible.”
Deabler-Meadows is an attorney for the National Center for Law and Economic Justice and said too many people were unfairly denied from SNAP.
“To get SNAP, you have to fill out a paper application, and then you have to do an interview, the interview is a mandatory part of the process,” Deabler-Meadows said. “And the way that DSS has set up their interviewing process, it’s reliant on a centralized call center, and that centralized call center is not functional.”
More than 48% of SNAP applications were denied solely due to not completing an interview, but the plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they couldn’t properly make appointments due to the call center leaving them on hold for extended hours or dropping the call.
In March 2025, the average wait time for the SNAP interview call center was just under 50 minutes. There were also 15,000 customer disconnects after waiting an average of 37 minutes and 11 seconds.
“SNAP is only available to people with no or very very low income,” Deabler-Meadows said. “When somebody is denied SNAP benefits, they can’t eat.”
The new requirements the court ordered the department to follow include:
- Reduce call center wait-times so 90% of callers do not need to wait more than 20 minutes.
- Reduce the number of applications denied solely due to failure to interview to no more than 20% of all applications.
- Make a policy to ensure SNAP complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The decision is really satisfying; it’s obviously positive to get a relief order that instructs the state to take such significant steps,” Deabler-Meadows said. “It has been a long road, you know, this litigation was filed in 2022.”
The Missouri Department of Social Services declined to comment.
