Contents:
Recent Daycare Articles:
Market Babies
An indepth account of the daycare struggles in New York and the nation in City Limits (January 2003)Day Care In New York
Read a recent article from Gotham Gazette by Kate Stohr (December 2, 2002)City's Budget Crisis Cuts Deep Into Daycare
City Limits and the Norwood News are reporting that the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) will cut its child care, Head Start and child support enforcement programs in order to meet the 15% budget cut mandated by Mayor Giuliani. Child care advocates are particularly upset because of the missed opportunity to create more daycare slots with the $165 million in federal block grants and surplus welfare dollars for child care expansion. With these funds, the Agency for Child Development (ACD) -- a division of ACS -- had planned to create more than 6,000 new daycare slots. Over the last two years, the City has only created 1,600 slots (50 of which were awarded to the Providers United Family Daycare Network UNHP helped organize).Read more in City Limits...
Read more in the Norwood News...
Providers Approved for 50 Day Care Slots
This past summer, Providers United, with the assistance of UNHP, applied to the City of New York’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) for funding of 150 day care slots. After a long wait, the network of 50 family day care providers in the Northwest Bronx recently received word that it has been awarded 50 day care slots.Providers United was formed three years ago out of a local organizing initiative by University Neighborhood on welfare reform. This award marks a giant leap forward for the network which provides high quality care to 150 children from low-income families. The 50 slots will be distributed among the providers who each run their own small business, and also opens the door to the possibility of obtaining funding for additional slots.
The slots will provide much needed day care funding for children in zip codes 10458, 10468, 10453, 10457 and 10467, an area that has been classified as high need for child care by ACS. They will also ensure that the providers will be paid for the day care they provide.
There has been a problem with the providers receiving payment from the City through the BEGIN program for their having provided day care to children of families receiving public assistance. Vouchers from BEGIN have not been coming in on time or at all, which obviously poses a problem for the day care providers, the majority of whom are low-income women themselves.
Most providers cannot afford to forgo payment for even one month, and since many payments have not been made, some providers have had to drop BEGIN clients. With the newly arrived slots from ACS, providers will be paid at higher rates per week ($111.06) than what they receive from private pay families ($80) for providing 10 hours of care a day for a preschooler. The network will also receive support for its staff and be able to expand.
Concourse House’s day care program was also awarded 16 additional slots by ACS. Their program has a two year waiting list for families in need of affordable day care, and many of those families utilize the Providers United program when possible. Congratulations from UNHP to both groups on the award!
For more information about Providers United, please call Anania Almonte at (718) 733-2557 x21. You can also read about the history of Providers United on our website.
Class of 2002 Graduation!
View photos of some of this year's graduates as well as from the last two years!Daycare Providers Tackle Taxes
February 2000 -- For the past year and a half University Neighborhood Housing Program has been working with Providers United, a group of family daycare providers in the Northwest Bronx, to improve the economic viability of their businesses and enhance the quality of childcare offered by its members. Since coming together as a group, 33 of the 35 providers have either begun to care for children or increased the number of children in their care. Many providers are earning income from their businesses for the first time and have identified the need for tax filing assistance. On February 3, the group held its first tax assistance workshop. Thirty four providers congregated at Concourse House to hear tax consultant Raul Martinez (pictured above) explain how to file their taxes as independent businesses and how to access the Earned Income Credit (EIC). Providers United will follow up with Martinez in late February with another workshop to address additional concerns.
November 1999 Update
It has been just over a year since family daycare providers in the Fordham Bedford neighborhood organized and formed the network, Providers United. The initial objectives defined by the providers at the group’s inception--to improve their child care skills, increase the financial viability of their business and work towards a formal network--have all been met.After obtaining the funding to formalize itself, the network was able to hire a coordinator, Anania Almonte. Each of the homes where children would be cared for was inspected and upgraded with safety and educational equipment. In addition, the majority of providers have increased the number of children in their care. An ESL program began this month for the providers, and classes are tailored to cover topics concerning their work with children and their experiences as business women.
The providers continue to meet monthly as a group to discuss new issues facing them as family daycare providers. The October meeting focused on a new obstacle many of them are facing with BEGIN, the program which governs child care for welfare recipients. Under workfare, parents report to a BEGIN center where they get a work assignment and a voucher to pay for childcare. As a result of a meeting with BEGIN last year, the providers were placed on BEGIN’s childcare list. Since then, many of these providers have cared for children of the BEGIN program’s participants. However, the majority of the providers have reported that BEGIN has been late with payments--up to three months in some cases.
Many times, Human Resource Administration (HRA) does not inform the provider when families are sanctioned from certain welfare benefits, including childcare vouchers. As a result, the provider continues caring for the child without receiving payment for her work. These nonpayments and late payments amount to thousands of dollars in losses to providers who often have no other source of income.
Martha Smith, a member of Providers United, said, “I think it’s ironic that we’re providing childcare for children of parents on welfare who are mandated to workfare by BEGIN and need providers to care for their children. Soon we’ll be on public assistance because we are working and not getting paid by the very same program.”
Providers United met with Kevin McGuire, the Bronx BEGIN Regional Director on November 17 to discuss this issue. The providers presented their individual cases to Mr. McGuire and proposed practical solutions for the payment problems. Mr. McGuire agreed to consider their recommendations and work to resolve each provider’s payment issue. A follow-up meeting has been scheduled for December.
A solution for the nonpayment problem may come from the $65.6 million in new money available from the City to spend on childcare before the end of this fiscal year. The New York Times reported that these additional dollars remain in city coffers while the Administration for Children’s Services and the Human Resources Administration work out details on how to spend it. At the same time, the Agency for Child Development (ACD) has a list of 40,000 children waiting to receive daycare while HRA estimates that the total number will reach 65,000 this year. In addition, the City plans to require homeless families to work, adding at least another 5,000 children to the list.
The City now has to decide where to devote these new resources. Licensed providers like those in Providers United who have attended trainings, had their homes inspected for safety and health requirements, bought equipment, books, educational games and toys know what the City should do -- cut the red tape and start spending some of that $65.6 million by filling the open slots in existing providers’ homes.
