Gemmell v. RI DHS

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice  (NCLEJ) today announced the dismissal of its almost three-year-old lawsuit that challenged the widespread failure of the state Department of Human Services (DHS) to timely provide SNAP food stamp benefits to needy families due to its troubled UHIP computer system.

In his latest update on the state’s compliance with a court order designed to ensure the timely provision of food stamp assistance to needy families, Special Master Deming Sherman indicated that the Department of Human Services’ timeliness in processing requests for food stamp benefits went slightly down, not up, in February. ACLU of RI executive director Steven Brown called it “frustrating” that, rather than improving, the state’s compliance rate had gone down.

November 2017 timeliness rates issued by the R.I. Department of Human Services (DHS) show that almost one of every two of the neediest households in the state did not get their food stamp (SNAP) applications processed in time. Attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ) called that figure “alarming” in a letter sent yesterday to Deming Sherman, the special master appointed in the groups’ on-going lawsuit challenging DHS’ failure to comply with federal law requiring the provisions of timely food stamp assistance to needy families. The ACLU and NCLEJ stated that, despite successful efforts by DHS to reduce the backlog of SNAP applications, “the most significant conclusion to be derived from” the agency’s latest monthly report is that unlawful delays in processing SNAP applications remain all too common.

After failing to provide court-ordered reports for August and September on the status of its efforts to ensure the timely provision of food stamp assistance to needy families, the state Department of Human Services has released a report for October, and the results, the ACLU stated today, are “jaw-dropping” and “demonstrate a continuing and unconscionable crisis affecting the state’s neediest families.” The report shows that some families waited more than a year before getting benefits to which they were entitled. Under federal law, states participating in the food stamp program, known as SNAP, are required to process food stamp applications within thirty days of the date of application, and to provide expedited food stamps to eligible households within seven days. The federally funded program helps put food on the table of Rhode Island’s poorest residents, but since the implementation of the UHIP system, those deadlines have routinely not been met.  Under a court order issued in February in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), the state was supposed to have a 96% compliance rate by August in the timely processing of SNAP applications. However, the October figures provided by DHS in a misleadingly rosy manner – since they do not account for pending overdue applications not processed that month – show the timeliness rate hovering at only about 65%, meaning that, even optimistically, one out of every three applicants has still not been getting their applications processed on time.

In recognition that a large backlog of food stamp applications causing undue hardship to hundreds of poor residents continues to exist, the ACLU of Rhode Island today announced it was re-staffing a telephone hotline for people to call if they are having trouble with their SNAP (food stamp) application getting processed in a timely manner due to the state’s year-long UHIP computer fiasco. The hotline number is 1-877-231-7171.

Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, today issued the following statement in response to U.S. District Judge William Smith’s  appointment of retired attorney Deming Sherman as a special master to oversee the resolution of the State’s ongoing problems with UHIP:

In response to the state’s unmitigated failure to comply with a court order issued in February designed to ensure the timely provision of food stamp assistance to needy families, U.S. District Judge William Smith today scheduled a public court hearing on Thursday in which he anticipates he will “proceed with appointment of a special master” to oversee a plan of action that will compel the state’s compliance with that order.

The ACLU of Rhode Island issued the following statement in response to the State's acknowledgement today about thousands of unprocessed applications submitted through the UHIP program:

One Year After Disastrous UHIP Rollout, ACLU Is Heading Back to Court To Seek Additional Remedies for Needy Food Stamp Applicants

The fallout from the rollout of UHIP, the state’s troubled new computer system, continues to plague Rhode Island’s poorest residents, as the Department of Human Services (DHS) showed virtually no improvement in April in the timely processing of SNAP (food stamp) applications, including for people the Department acknowledges were entitled to emergency relief. That is the upshot of a report sent by DHS this week to the ACLU of Rhode Island (ACLU) and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ), required as part of a settlement agreement filed earlier this year in the organizations’ challenge to DHS’s failure to timely process SNAP applications.

Over 1,200 needy families suffered delays in receiving SNAP benefits in March, including over 800 families who qualified for expedited benefits because of their emergency need, according to a recent RI Department of Human Services (DHS) report. The report was required by the recent settlement of a lawsuit filed in December by the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice  (NCLEJ), challenging DHS's failure to timely process SNAP applications.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice  (NCLEJ) today announced that a settlement agreement has been signed with the state in the federal lawsuit the groups filed in December over the widespread failure of the state Department of Human Services (DHS) to timely provide SNAP food stamp benefits to needy families due to its troubled UHIP computer system. The settlement was reached with the assistance of U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Smith and is subject to the Court’s approval.

In recognition of a continuing backlog causing undue hardship to hundreds of poor residents, the ACLU of Rhode Island has set up a telephone hotline for people to call if they are having trouble with their SNAP (food stamp) application being processed in a timely manner due to the state’s months-long UHIP computer fiasco.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island (ACLU) and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice  (NCLEJ) have today filed a class action lawsuit over the state’s ongoing, critical, and widespread failure to timely provide food stamp benefits to needy families due in large part to its transition to a new, and very troubled, computer system.