Ashley Edginton is the volunteer coordinator for Meals on Wheels in Fairbanks. But on an unusually cold March morning, with temperatures dipping into the negative thirties, she had to make the deliveries herself.
"You're going to be driving in immense ice fog today, so you just take it slow and steady," Edginton said as her wheels thumped over frost heaves glazed with ice.
Alaska has some of the highest food prices in America. It's also home to the highest share of veterans. And for many of them, those two facts collide at the checkout line.
Edginton's delivery list included several food-insecure veterans. But as a group, she said, they can be really hard to reach.
"That population, specifically — you have to be one of them," Edginton said. "So, I stock materials at the VFW halls or the VA clinics that have case managers, and most of them are military in their background. It's different coming from them."
The other part of Edginton's job is connecting her food-insecure clients with assistance programs they can apply for, like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. But she said that's out of reach for many. Alaska is experiencing a yearslong administrative backlog for SNAP applications.
"I often hear: 'I tried before, and they denied me,'" Edginton said. "We've had people who perfectly qualified because their income was zero. But you have months and months and months and months of delay."
And now there's another barrier on the horizon.
A new law removes veteran privileges for federal food benefits
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says about 6% of Alaska veterans participate in SNAP. And according to the Military Family Advisory Network, one in five veterans in the nation experience food insecurity. But many do not claim those benefits.
Gina Plata-Nino is the director for SNAP at the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit advocacy organization that addresses food insecurity. She said food insecurity starts while many are still in the service.
"And then that food insecurity doesn't cease when you leave the military," she said. "Now, you don't have a job. And a lot of the jobs that you did in the military, there's not necessarily the same jobs that you can do when you leave."
Plata-Nino said she expects it will be difficult for many veterans in need to comply with the new law.
"A lot of the jobs there are not necessarily jobs that are going to lead to stable employment," she said. "They're like, low-wage jobs that don't even sometimes provide the full hours that individuals need."
She also said the state's SNAP application backlog could make it harder for Alaska veterans to apply for disability waivers.
"It's not as easily accessible," she said. "Especially with the timeliness issues that Alaska has."
Plata-Nino said she's especially concerned that the law's "able-bodied" designation might not account for veterans with disabilities that are harder to see.
"There are some that, depending on when they served, they came back with certain physical or mental disabilities," she said. "And those are not as easily documented."
State and national lawmakers react to the change
Critics of the new policy say it adds new hurdles for a program that some veterans rely on. In an emailed statement, Fairbanks Sen. Scott Kawasaki, who co-chairs the state's Joint Armed Services Committee, called the new work requirements "misdirected policies that would deny veterans benefits they have already earned through their sacrifice."
But supporters call it reform.
U.S. Rep. Glen Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, chairs the House Committee on Agriculture. At a December committee meeting, he defended the part of the law that removes work requirement waivers for many veterans.
"Honestly, if you're coming out of the military and you don't have a disability — I just find that someone is going from active duty status to veteran's, they want to work," Thompson said.
All three of Alaska's federal delegates voted for the law. U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan — a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and a Marine Corps veteran himself — stands firm in his support for the law.
Sullivan couldn't be reached for an interview, but Devyn Shea, a spokesperson for his office, said in an emailed statement that the senator views his approach as "consistent with the overall goals of social safety net programs, which is to take care of the most vulnerable and disabled in society, but also to encourage upward mobility to enable able-bodied Americans to rise up and eventually graduate from such programs with good-paying jobs that come with their own benefits."
The statement also called the 20-hour weekly work requirement "modest" and noted that it is less than the 30-hour requirement implemented during the Clinton Administration.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Nick Begich III did not respond to requests for comment.
A food security worker on the front line of Alaska hunger expects a rough road ahead but tells veterans not to give up hope
Back in Fairbanks, Meals on Wheels coordinator Ashley Edginton came to a stop at one of the last homes on her route.
It belongs to an elderly veteran and his wife, who signed up for Meals on Wheels because the food bank is too far away for them to safely drive on the frozen roads.
"The roads are a mess, and it's really quite a commitment to haul yourself out there," she said. "And the husband's on oxygen. So, there's a lot of barriers and layers there."
Edginton said she doesn't know what the future holds with the new law. She urged veterans facing food insecurity to reach out to local and statewide nonprofits for help.
"When opportunities arise, we tell our network so that we can maneuver through any changes that occur," she said. "So, I don't have fear of veterans not being able to be touched in some capacity."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
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