An anti-hunger nonprofit organization has found that the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) is so severely understaffed that high numbers of calls from recipients are going unanswered, with the department reportedly ignoring a whopping 81% of calls in March alone as many recipients are left without their SNAP benefits or other options.
Project Bread – an anti-hunger nonprofit organization – says that over the past 12 months, nearly 140,000 people, including 48,000 children, have lost SNAP benefits in Massachusetts. The organization attributes this largely to the inability of recipients to reach the DTA as well as changing eligibility requirements.
“Normal human error might happen, but when it’s cumulative and the consequence is that my family doesn’t eat, it’s a really big problem,” Merideth Lively, a single mother from Amherst who had to go months without her benefits, told the Herald in a phone interview.
“I was up for a normal recertification, which is part of a standard process about every six months. The first problem I had was that my caseworker was not there for my phone interview, so a supervisor had to conduct it,” she said.
Lively has utilized SNAP benefits to support their family while working toward her bachelor’s degree and says it became increasingly difficult to reach anyone at the DTA or to get any questions answered over the past year. During her SNAP recertification process, despite providing the appropriate paperwork on time, Lively says she lost access to two months worth of SNAP benefits she was eligible for.
After no success over the phone, Lively went directly into the regional DTA office, where she was forced to wait for hours while a single employee – the only one on staff that day, she says – managed her case and several others in a frenzy.
“So, they brought me back to a room filled with cubicles where each client had to sit and wait at a desk for a phone call from a caseworker. I joked with my friend later, saying, ‘maybe I should bring my resume because it feels like I’m doing the DTA’s job right now,’” Lively said, adding that she fielded phone calls from three different staffers before finally meeting with a caseworker in-person to get the issues with her case resolved.
“I was able to get there in person. I was able to print out the paper to bring it. I was able to wait around for hours since I had set aside time to do it, but I could have been doing literally anything else, like applying for a job, or doing my homework, or playing with my kid,” Lively said, noting the likely high amount of recipients who are not able to make it into their local DTA office.
DTA says the claim by Project Bread that 81% of phone calls were ignored is simply untrue. The department quickly pivoted to blaming President Trump for SNAP-related problems in Massachusetts.
“Because of policies passed by President Trump and Congress, millions of people across the country, including thousands in Massachusetts, are being kicked off SNAP. DTA is focused on doing everything we can to help Massachusetts residents – including families with young kids, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities – stay on SNAP so that they don’t go hungry,” DTA spokesperson Cecille Avilla told the Herald. “Our efforts include increasing the number of caseworkers, enhancing staff training and utilizing new technology to help us serve clients more efficiently.”
As part of her FY2027 supplemental budget, Gov. Maura Healey included $41.7 million for 120 new DTA employees, including 80 caseworkers. The supplemental budget was engrossed into law on March 18.
But a DTA whistleblower, who detailed “rampant” fraud within the state’s SNAP program along with lackluster efforts by the DTA to stop it, says the additional workers may be too little too late, adding that department leadership indicated in recent meetings that the total number of new caseworkers has been reduced.
“It’s hard to say whether or not the number of employees is the ultimate fix to the problem, but I can say that the 80 new caseworkers has already been called down to 70,” the whistleblower told the Herald. “And these new 70 caseworkers still have some obstacles to overcome in terms of being integrated into the office and getting into a rhythm and being able to take on these cases.”
The whistleblower adds that on top of integrating the new employees, changing eligibility requirements have caused confusion among many recipients who no longer qualify for their benefits, adding added strain to the department already lagging in response time. They say it’s led to many workers checking out and taking additional time off, in their opinion.
Project Bread is blaming the Trump administration’s federal cuts to state SNAP programs, while also calling for Massachusetts to add an additional 200 caseworkers to the DTA.
“This crisis comes on the heels of the largest federal cuts to SNAP in history and amid rising need for these programs as 40% of households in Massachusetts are food insecure,” the nonprofit said in a release.
But the federal cuts, as reported by the Herald, come as Gov. Maura Healey refuses to turn over detailed information on Massachusetts SNAP recipients to the USDA for what the Trump administration says is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. The feds have also cut off funding to Massachusetts due to its significant payment error rate, which has been among the worst in the country for several years.
“SNAP is the most effective, scalable tool we have to reduce hunger in Massachusetts,” said Project Bread CEO Erin McAleer. “The question we should be asking is not how to shrink the program, but how to ensure every family that needs it can access it, and how we invest in the infrastructure that makes that possible.”
Massachusetts receives over $2 billion annually in federal SNAP funding.
