NCLEJ Lawsuit Challenges Failure to Provide Timely Food Stamps to Low-Income Georgians

On March 11, 2014 NCLEJ filed a federal court class action challenging Georgia’s failure to 1) timely process initial and renewal applications for and provide timely food stamps to eligible households as required by federal food stamp law; and 2) provide constitutionally adequate food stamp denial notices to applicants. Thousands of low-income Georgia households face administrative hurdles in the application and eligibility renewal process and do not get timely food stamps as a result. The Georgia agency denies food stamps to many needy households and gives them denial notices without information specific enough to for the household to know the reason for the denial and decide whether to appeal.

The case, Melanie K. v. Horton, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Plaintiffs are represented by Marc Cohan, Gina Mannix, Tedde Tasheff, and Jenny Pelaez of NCLEJ and David Webster of Atlanta, Georgia.