PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Federal pandemic relief funds for child care have run out, which could leave families scrambling for child care with many centers forced to close their doors.
In 2021, $24 billion was earmarked in the American Rescue Plan to help daycare centers stay afloat. Now, that funding is exhausted.
According to the Century Foundation, over 2,800 childcare programs are expected to close in Pennsylvania — and more than 150,000 children would lose care — without a much-needed cash infusion. Legislation introduced in Congress by Democrats would provide $16 billion a year over the next five years to help child care programs across the country stay afloat. That bill currently has no Republican support.
“I feel like if these policymakers really understood the depth of what we, as early child care providers do on a daily basis to really support our families, they would see us in a different light, and there will be no question about our budgets being passed,” said Damaris Alvarado Rodriguez, who runs the Children's Playhouse Early Learning Center in Philadelphia. She is among the growing number of daycare owners frustrated with the uphill battle in Congress for another “bailout”-type infusion to save the industry.
Aliya Logan, owner of Smart Beginnings Early Learning Center and the Learning Institute of Philadelphia, is also frustrated. “You can't supply more jobs into the economy, unless you stabilize the childcare industry,” she said, adding she already knows of centers that were forced to shut their doors.
“The fear for me is closing my doors after 15 years, and for my students to not have a place in your community to serve them, to help advocate for them,” Logan shared.
Parents are already getting desperate, according to Latonta Godboldt, co-founder of Philadelphia's Family Child Care Coalition. “I've seen parents saying, if you do my kid’s hair, I'll watch your kids, or they're taking them in cars all day, interacting with electronics only,” she said.
Laverne Cheeseboro, another Coalition co-founder, says some have even gone as far as taking out ads on Craigslist. “They're just looking for whoever. Every time families do that, these children are endangered sometimes when they make these decisions,” she said.
That parents are scrambling in desperation scares Diane Barner, executive director of the Pennsylvania Child Care Association. “A Craigslist ad that says, ‘I have a three month old and I need childcare like Monday, because I have a new job. And if I don't get childcare, I'll lose my job,’” she noted. “Our businesses here in Pennsylvania need employee employees that they can depend upon. It's so challenging if a makeshift childcare arrangement falls apart.”
The situation for daycare centers was dire before the pandemic, with low employee retention and hiring issues. Average pay rates of just over $12 an hour were a deal breaker for job seekers looking for a livable wage. Godboldt says it’s still an issue.
“I am putting out ads [but] people are not coming to interviews. When they do come, they are asking for higher pay rates,” she said. “I get it because the cost of living is so high. Add all of that together, and you're looking at a disaster.”
Advocates claim nothing was learned from the pandemic, when childcare workers were deemed essential. Barber says although we’re already seeing daycare facilities shut down, the fallout from lack of funding will continue.
“It won't happen overnight, but it will happen over a period of time, as providers say we can't do this anymore. We can't find staff,” she said, calling what’s happening a “child care cliff.”
“You watch those emergency shows where a car goes off the cliff. And so it goes off the cliff, and then it hits another section of rock, and it hangs out there for a little while. And then it falls and hits another section and then another. That's what it is. It'll be a series of cliffs,” Barber explained.
“That's what's unacceptable, because some of this could have been resolved years ago. If we had continued to invest in childcare, we wouldn't be where we are today. It wouldn't be such a critical mess that it is today.”