Tri-Cities child care may be harder to find after coronavirus. New grants may help
Many child care providers in Tri-Cities and the state have made the decision to close — at least temporarily in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“The biggest reason for closures was low enrollment,” Lee Williams, CEO of Community Minded Enterprises told the Tri-City Herald.
Whether people are unemployed or working from home — children aren’t being sent to child care, said the Spokane nonprofit that operates Child Care Aware of Eastern Washington, including a Pasco office.
Franklin County had 141 providers with a capacity of 2,752 children. Benton had 131 with 3,878 spots, according to the latest Child Care Aware data report from 2018.
Now 40 programs are closed in Benton County and 15 in Franklin County because of the new coronavirus outbreak.
That leaves 610 spots vacant in Franklin County and 631 in Benton.
As of Friday, 1,402 child care programs with the capacity to serve 64,741 children across the state had closed and 20,696 child care slots are now vacant, according to the nonprofit that has served families and providers for more than 30 years.
Providers that have tried to stay open are on the brink of closure as they try to find the essential supplies they need to operate, including hand soap and baby wipes.
“Hoarding was a big problem in the beginning,” said Jill Johnson, public relations manager for Community Minded Enterprises. “Child care providers couldn’t get milk and cleaning supplies couldn’t be found ... ‘Do you know how much milk kids drink?’ “
Ginger Still, the executive director of Kids World, is seeing the same problem.
She said the child care center, with locations in Richland and West Richland, has had a horrible time finding the basic items such as hand sanitizers, paper towels and toilet paper needed to be in business.
“Our operations manager literally goes shopping every day to get what we need,” Still said. “She even drives to Yakima.” She added that it took two months for an order of infrared thermometers to arrive.
Depending on how long the crisis continues, many of the businesses that close might be unable to start back up again.
Child care advocates are warning that could have a domino effect on the entire state’s ability to get back to business, and fears persist on the quality of care parents may find.
“Our fears that more people will access caregivers that aren’t safe — someone that they barely know. There won’t be anyone who knows what goes on there,” Williams said. “That is when children get in risky situations.”
Already in crisis
The child care system in Washington was struggling prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, said Marcia Jacobs, communications manager for Child Care Aware of Washington.
Affordable child care was hard to find, and the need didn’t meet the demand. The lack led to a loss of more than $2 billion in direct costs to employers across the state, according to a Department of Commerce report from October 2019.
Child care also is chronically underfunded when it comes to children on subsidies, causing many programs to operate at a loss, Jacobs said. Subsidy rates are determined by the region of the state where the care is provided, the child’s age, the amount of care needed and the type of care.
When the pandemic began spreading and Gov. Jay Inslee announced his “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order in March, closures spiked.
Children stopped showing up for care for various reasons: some parents were working from home, were laid off or were concerned for their children’s health, Jacobs said.
“We have been blessed by a lot of parents who still have been paying,” Still said.
While Kids World is operating at about 30 percent of its capacity, she said the businesses have been able to stay afloat because they still have been receiving payments from parents working from home to reserve their child’s spot, while choosing to keep the kids out of care.
“I think part of it is that they value their care enough that they want a place they can go back to,” she said.
She expect to get back up to 80 or 90 percent of capacity as the state reopens, but it may take a while to recover completely.
Looking ahead
Early research by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and Center for American Progress suggests that half of U.S. child care capacity — about 4.5 million licensed slots — is at risk of disappearing if child care providers do not receive adequate support while they are closed.
Washington could lose 29 percent of its capacity post-COVID-19, or 42,000 slots.
Although, there has yet been a provider in Washington that has closed out its license in direct response to COVID-19, Luba Bezborodnikova, assistant secretary of licensing at Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) told the Tri-City Herald.
A national push by child care advocates asks for $50 billion to help providers make it through the pandemic, arguing child care is a vital economic necessity.
A report by the Center for Law and Social Policy suggests Washington should be allocated more than $830 million. About $3.5 billion was allocated for child care relief in Congress’s CARES Act.
An informal workgroup with representatives from agencies across the state have been brainstorming about the future of child care, said Nicole Rose, director of provider services at the state Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF).
Rose said ultimately, parents are looking at what to do with their children for summer care and summer camps. With different counties being at different phases of Washington’s reopening plan, recommendations on child care reopening may look different.
This week, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued tools to help in consideration of reopening communities, schools and workplaces and issued recommendations for child care programs.
Help on the way
Child Care Aware is helping providers get access to the essential materials they need to continue operating.
The nonprofit set up a donation page to help not only purchase supplies but have them shipped director to providers.
Child care programs also saw help in the form of $29 million in funding from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families
The grant application process opened May 15 through the department’s provider portal. The application period closes on June 30 or when money is exhausted.
Small providers between 0-49 capacity can apply for $6,500, medium providers with 50-99 capacity can apply for $11,500 and large providers with capacity over 100 can apply for $14,000 in funding.
The funds can be used to pay for facility or rent costs, utilities, health and safety or cleaning supplies, staff compensation or benefits and food. The funding is only available to providers that have remained open.
Reporter Mack Ervin III contributed to this story.
