Subsidy Plays Role in Child Care

Finding child care used to be one of the biggest battles. Now, it's trying to pay for it that is, as child care can cost between $1,000 - $1,500 a month. That's where the Care 4 Kids program comes into play.

Care 4 Kids, or C4K, is a subsidy for low and moderate income families to help pay for child care. In May, citing the budget deficit, the Department of Social Services, which administers the program, made abrupt changes that will impact families and centers alike.

HOPE for New Haven Child Development Center is one such center that is feeling the pinch of changes and fears what program redetermination – when a family's situation is reviewed every six months to make sure the child or children are still eligible – could bring if families reach income guidelines and are removed from the program, causing a ripple effect for all involved. As a faith-based Christian center, there is no other assistance than from what C4K helps with.

“It put a lot of families in a lurch and centers in a bind,” said HOPE for New Haven CDC director Georgia Goldburn. “Some [families] were going through redetermination and it just created a lot of problems for centers, particularly here.”

For instance, the center's summer program has been devastated because families cannot afford the $150 a week cost without Care 4 Kids subsidies. There are usually 10 to 12 children in the summer program. Now, there are only three. The other families had to make the decision as to whether or not they could leave their kids home alone or if they could get a family member to watch them.

“I don't know where half of our children are staying who are supposed to be in this program,” said Goldburn.

Care 4 Kids plays a big role at HOPE for New Haven, as 34 families, 50% of the families at the center, receive the subsidy. Of those 34 families, only two or three fall outside the “working families who receive cash assistance” category. If the program is cut back any further, they fear they will lose their subsidy, and for some, like, Felicia, who teaches at the center and has a child attending the center, losing their way of making a living.

Felicia is a single mother. Without Care 4 Kids, she would no longer be able to send her son to HOPE and she would have to stay home to take care of him, leaving the center without a teacher.

“There's no way I would make it,” she said. And, at the same time, she is trying to further her early care and education training by taking online courses, but is not eligible for scholarship money to help pay for her education.

Victoria, a mother who donates her time to the center when she's not working her own job, says C4K has been very helpful to her as well.

“I feel safe with [my daughter] here,” she said. “I would have to stop bringing her [here] and cut my hours at work and would need to get help from the state,” she said.

Another parent/teacher, Devonna, pointed to the tough decisions that families need to make.

“I pay my child care or I get food. I pay child care or I get gas for my car. Or I take the bus,” she said.

Some parents are looking for ways to save money, opting to send their child only part-time so they can get the educational and spiritual grounding they need, while saving on child care costs.

For some, part-time care is not an option, as is the case of one mother (she declined to be named), who sends her daughter to the center. Drug-free for more than six years, the woman said it has been a very long journey and one of the biggest forms of support she received was acceptance into the C4K program. Since she does not qualify for TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), she would lose her child care and would have to leave her full-time job to care for her children. It would mean depending on welfare and subsidized housing, she would lose her car because she couldn't afford payments and her credit history would most likely be destroyed.

“I would go back 10 years after having come so far in seven years,” she said. “I know we need to make some noise.”

And noise they made. Center officials invited state Representative Gary Holder-Winfield to tour the facility on Long Wharf Drive and talk to the people who are most impacted by the C4K decision and they asked him to stand up for them the same way he stood up for a ban against the death penalty.

“You have to fight constantly [for yourselves], not just when you're threatened,” Holder-Winfield told center officials.”Framing is important and I think people fail miserably at that. Let people know who you are when times are good so you don't have to back track.”