Like thousands of others, Patricia Stepter took her place in line for help replacing the food lost because of Hurricane Gustav.

"This has been rough on everybody," she said.

She is hoping all of the disasters from the Disaster Food Stamp Program have passed.

"I hope everyone gets what they deserve because we've all lost something," she said.

Long lines have transformed into a minutes-long wait, with no complaints from people on Friday. But the Department of Social Services still has some kinks to work out. They erroneously issued $8 million too much in food stamp aid. They recovered about 90 percent before it was ever spent, but $730,000 made it to recipients who got more than they qualified for.

Earlier this week, DSS said it was their error, and they would not penalize recipients or ask for repayments.

But, after consulting with the USDA interim Secretary Kristy Nichols, said they will now send letters to recipients of the excess funds, requesting their money back.

Stepter says that is not fair.

"Don't punish us because somebody else made a mistake," she said.

David Williams, Litigation Director for Southeast Louisiana Legal Services, says short of litigation, residents have few choices.

"It's just a shame the state doesn't have in place a procedure like other states to ask for a waiver of overpayment because it wasn't their fault," he said.

Federal law will soon require states to report failures like these annually, and get permission before collecting overpayments. But Williams says that law doesn't take effect for another 12 days--October 1st.

Some residents said the request to return the excess money is fair.

"It happens all the time with income tax returns," said Angela Cagnolatti. "Oops, we sent you too much money we need that back."

"I don't think they should be penalized if they got more than they were supposed to get and it wasn't their fault," said Emmett Crockett. "I do think maybe they should be responsible for returning the overage they received."

Approximately 22,000 people were issued more money than they qualified for. Some of those residents have already received letters from the state, requesting to set up a repayment plan to recover the money.