Just days after Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to slash from the state budget thousands of child care slots and critical funding for foster children, family advocates came together for National A Day Without Child Care.
The rally was held in the San Fernando Valley on Monday. Child care providers, working parents, advocates, and community leaders joined in Northridge to highlight the crisis across California. Families have been expecting an increase of 200,000 new child care slots that were promised by Governor Newsom in 2021, but on Friday he announced the remaining allocation of 80,000 spaces would no longer be available. He also plans to decrease funding for emergency support for foster children by 40% with cuts to the Emergency Child Care Bridge program. CCRC joined Child Care Providers Union of California and SEIU Local 99 to call for transformative change, not state budget cuts to child care and early education field.
“This is nothing more than basic dignity, we are one of the only rich countries in the entire world that expects families to carry this burden all on their own,” said LA City Councilwoman Nithya Ramen.
A Day Without Child Care is a national recognition of the essential role of child care for children, families, and the economy. Providers, parents, and families are demanding a child care system that is equitable, provides living wages to child care providers, and is affordable for families. Child care providers deserve fair pay and families deserve access to affordable and quality care.
We know firsthand that families are facing a shortage of childcare options and that we need more funding. For example, last year, there were 4,449 children ages 0-5 in Panorama City, but there were only 1,307 licensed child care slots available. That means there was a child care space for only 30% of children in the city.
About 18,000 children are on the wait list for subsidized child care across CCRC’s service area, which includes northern Los Angeles County and the entirety of San Bernardino County. Many families languish on this wait list for months and even years, awaiting new state funding. “These are parents who want to go back to work or to school but can’t because there isn’t enough high-quality child care available at an affordable rate,” said CCRC Government Relations Specialist Yvonne Perez. This directly affects women and disproportionately affects women of color who have left the workforce due to the lack of available child care. One of these women is Dr. Alexandra Orchard, who shared that she had to postpone her medical residency due to a lack of consistent child care for her long, evening shifts.
“I spent years studying, obtaining my medical degree, training to become a doctor. I cannot begin to describe how it feels to have everything upended due to a lack of child care,” said Orchard. “How many more mothers and parents must be forced out of the workforce for California to realize that the child care system is in crisis? We cannot continue on like this. Child care is not just a support system for families, it is a critical infrastructure that upholds society.”
