![]() ![]() If the head of household has not received SNAP benefits in the past, a new EBT card is created and mailed to the household. As soon as a household’s SNAP application is approved (which can take up to 30 calendar days), SNAP benefits are issued to an EBT card. Card delays during this time compounded the existing concerns advocates held about the untimely delivery of EBT cards to eligible customers.Įven before the pandemic began, SNAP recipients frequently reported not receiving their EBT card in the mail within federally mandated timeframes. Both of these things put extraordinary pressure on EBT processors to quickly ramp up the production and distribution of EBT cards. When the pandemic began in March 2020, demand for SNAP benefits spiked and a new federal program for school children (called Pandemic-EBT) was created. After getting many referrals from the Food Bank, Legal Aid took the lead in investigating EBT complaints and traced them back to several policies and practices in place in Ohio: In 2020, the Benefits Access Partnership (BAP) identified Ohio’s EBT customer service line as a common source of frustration and confusion for SNAP recipients who struggled to access the food benefits they had been approved to receive. In 2020, the Benefits Access Partnership (BAP) identified Ohio’s EBT customer service line as a common source of frustration and confusion for SNAP recipients. The Benefits Access Partnership is a collaborative effort between Community Solutions, the Cuyahoga County Department of Job and Family Services (CJFS), the Greater Cleveland Food Bank (Food Bank), and the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland (Legal Aid) to improve access to public benefits in Cuyahoga County, with a focus on SNAP. The Center for Community Solutions (Community Solutions) and its advocacy partners are hopeful that ODJFS will incorporate these recommendations in its re-procurement process for Ohio’s EBT system in the near future. This paper presents a case study on efforts by Ohio advocates in 2020 to respond to identified problems with EBT’s customer service, some of which pre-dated the pandemic, to ensure that ODJFS makes responsiveness to SNAP recipients’ needs a top priority for EBT vendors serving the state. However, the pandemic also revealed weaknesses in some aspects of state-EBT systems, especially customer service. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the strength of SNAP’s EBT systems to respond quickly to changing circumstances, including a sudden spike in need, ensuring eligible families continued to have access to food assistance benefits. Ohio is expected to begin a new procurement process for an EBT vendor this year. Ohio’s current EBT vendor is Conduent, which took over the state’s EBT contract from JPMorgan Chase in 2014.
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