Missouri Food Assistance Applicants Hit ‘Bottleneck’

Imagine you have just been evicted, and that any documentation you had regarding income, health care expenses, utility costs, or other relevant paperwork got lost in the shuffle.

That is a problem in and of itself.

But the lack of information is a bigger barrier when it stands between you and gaining eligibility for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as “food stamps”), which is “our nation’s greatest tool in fighting hunger,” according to Elizabeth Keever, chief resource officer with Harvesters, a Kansas City, Missouri-based food bank.

Harder still for many Missouri food stamp applicants is setting up the required phone interview with staff at the state Department of Social Services. Getting through to the call center can sometimes take hours, critics of the process say, but without that interview, the application gets tossed out in 30 days and the household must start anew.

If the bottleneck is bad now, SNAP advocates are bracing for even bigger challenges based on new requirements in the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill President Donald Trump signed in July.

Keever and others worry that additional barriers could mean fewer SNAP recipients at a time when the increased cost of living is already driving food insecurity to historic levels. Food pantries are ill-equipped to pick up all the slack, observers said.

See the video below for more information on the issue in Missouri.

Flatland is partnering with Harvesters to share additional content on the problem of food insecurity and efforts to combat hunger.