Finally approved for food stamps, this Tennessee woman said her card never arrived

SMYRNA, Tenn. (WTVF) — A state system upgrade has created a backlog in getting food stamp applications approved. After jumping through the hoops, a Smyrna woman said her Electronic Benefits Card (EBT) never arrived.

In November, Philesha Williams applied for SNAP benefits to help feed her family.

"Life threw a curveball, here I am, what do I do?" Williams said.

It took months, but she was finally approved in January. At one point she was on hold with the Tennessee Department of Human Services for three hours apparently.

“I mean I’ve been literally so depressed, I’ve cried so much, even in the workplace. They’re like: 'Phileshia what’s wrong?' And I’m like, 'Nothing.' I try to keep a smile on my face. I’m an encourager. To look at me, you wouldn’t know that I have disabling conditions,” Williams said.

The state did a system upgrade in the summer, which created a backlog in processing food stamp applications.

After getting approved for $76 a month, Philesha's EBT card never arrived. She's asked for a new card to be sent.

"I feel the system has failed tremendously," Williams said.

The federal government said applications need to be processed in less than 30 days, but thousands of Tennesseans have had to wait months for an answer.

“State government is supposed to be enforcing the law. It’s not supposed to be the ones that are breaking it,” Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, said.

Yarbro has introduced a couple of bills to help prevent the backlog from ever happening again.

"We need to be honest with ourselves as a state government that we’ve got problems that span beyond this issue. I mean, we all remember during COVID with unemployment. We ran into a similar problem, and it’s just unacceptable," Yarbro said.

In the meantime, Phileshia has been forced to use rent money to pay for food. Now she's behind on payments.

"When I reach out for help and help is not there, that’s really disturbing," Williams said.

The state is currently trying to catch up on thousands of federally required interviews with applicants. The state reportedly asked the federal government to waive those interviews and that request was denied. We reached out to U.S. Department of Agriculture on her EBT card situation and are waiting to hear back.
 
“I do think we need to have an after-action to figure out what happened, what went wrong, and how do we avoid it again,” Yarbro said.

NewsChannel 5 sent Phileshia a list of resources in Rutherford County. She said Experience Community Church in Murfreesboro was able to help her with emergency rent money, which was a godsend.

A TDHS spokesperson issued a statement: "As you know, last week the department scheduled 35,000 federally mandated interviews to expedite the processing of pending SNAP applications that were older than 30 days, and we have successfully reached out to all applicants that were scheduled. Please note some cases were able to be completed during the interviews last week if customers provided verifications in advance of the interview. As of January 31st, we had approximately 20,000 applications that were pending older than 30 days. This week, our proactive efforts continued with scheduling more than 16,000 interviews for pending applications, and as of today, we have reached out to 15,693 applicants. It is important to keep in mind that the numbers do shift as applications are received, approved, and denied daily. However, in this all-hands-on deck approach, we have made significant progress and we will continue to make improvements to ensure that our customers receive their benefits as timely as possible."