ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska senators gathered public testimony Tuesday in Juneau on a bill that would relax certain eligibility requirements for receiving federal food assistance, including increasing the income limit and doing away with an asset test.
SB 149, sponsored by Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, was referred to the Health and Social Services Committee in May. The bill highlights food insecurity in the state, citing issues with the food supply, dependency on imports and a SNAP backlog, which is thousands of applications deep. Alaskans wait as long as 10 months for their applications to be processed.
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