"We child care advocates are celebrating, but some parents may not know what is happening, they fell through the cracks in November and they've fallen through them again. Some of them gave up after hearing their childcare ended in November or December. We cannot find some of these parents."
--Maria Luz Torre, Organizer for Parent Voices
1. A little herstory
Welfare in Amerikkka is a big pain in the you-know-what. It's the same thing in California. Child Care is a small part of that big pain, but, for poor and just-barely-making-it single and married parents with children--it's as big a pain as the Big W. Don’t get me wrong, child care was probably the best thing that happened after welfare reform because legislators realized as an afterthought ,duh, that 70% of the participants are young children. Parents were required to work but they forgot about the children! Grudgingly, they added child care but parent advocates almost have to fight for it every budget cycle.. However, President Clinton made Welfare in America tougher, shortening the time poor parents could be on it to five years. Period. Even more reason why child care support was important beyond the five years.
Child Care is, at the Federal level, a two headed beast. Stage 1 and 2 Childcare, funded through a.k.a. TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families--a 1996 Clinton creation), is available in most states; Stage 1 is for unemployed parents receiving cash assistance, Stage 2 is for parents who have gotten jobs, a training program, or are going to school/college. California is the only state that has Stage 3 child care. And the last 3 Governors have been trying to abolish it – the crown jewel of a program that tries to move parents from welfare to work because this is the only thing that realistically helps children to learn while their parents earn.
Getting into Stage 3 is as much a Catch-22 as what happens if you still need help after your generic and very personal five years have run out on getting welfare assistance. You can only get on Stage 3 if you have used Stage 2 child care. You can't sign up for Stage Three until the very last of the 24 months of Stage 2. If you sign up just a little bit too late, too bad, you don't get it (and this often happens if a family has not been in an approved work-activity and thus skipped their Stage 2).
2. Out With The Governator, In With Jerry The Gentrifier of Oakland, CA
The Reign of the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is over, but the memories of his constant failed and successful attempts to cut this and that desperately needed benefit for poor parents, and for their children, will last a long time.
Stage three child care served 81,000 children (in 60,000 families) in California until the fall of 2010. Governator Schwarzenegger vetoed that part of the state budget in October. Twelve hundred and nine children in San Francisco lost Stage Three child care before Parent Voices and other organizations began fighting to get cuts restored.
California Legislature Assembly Speaker John A. Perez also got involved, pledging some of the 15% cut in the Assembly's budget ($6 million) as a bridge fund. He also asked the First Five Commissions (FFC) all over CA for help until Stage 3 child care could be restored. The Legislature (slowly, so very slowly...) passed a budget, but couldn't muster enough votes to overcome the governor's veto of child care funds.
November 2010 was full of more activity from activists, Speaker Perez, an Alameda County District Judge (who extended Stage 3 coverage until December 31st for Bay Area families), and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The court order was an end-run around Schwarzenegger. It's nice to have something like that available, not so nice to actually have to fight to get a judge to enforce it.
Perez announced $40 million more in bridge funds. San Francisco's Proposition 10, a.k.a. prop 28, which funds the local First Five Commission's childcare program for children ages 0-5, got some love, a supportive resolution, from the Board of Supervisors (BOS). Supervisor Eric Mar is on San Francisco's FFC.
Families were sent notices that their child care would end in November, more notices went out about an end to coverage New Year's Eve.
Things began to look up a little in December, 2010, but, as Maria Luz Torre of Parent Voices said, some parents panicked and disappeared before child care activists could contact them about what else was going on. One hundred families, about 10% of the total concerned in Alameda County (across the Bay from San Francisco), vanished.
Speaker Perez introduced Assembly Bill 1 (AB 1) to reverse the veto and restore Stage Three Child Care in early December. Jerry Brown officially became Governor of California January 3rd, 2011; January 10th he included Stage Three Child Care funding in his 2011-2012 state budget proposal. January 14th, Speaker Perez announced that AB 1 was effective retroactive to January 1st, 2011, good news for poor families that need it.
Good news, bad news. The bad news is that Jerry Brown wants to make it harder for parents to get into the Stage Three Child Care program. His budget reduces eligibility from 75% of the State Median Income to 60%, which means that a familiy of three must gross no more than $3000 a month.
There's a powerful, and funny video on YouTube, of a candidate for political office running on the "The Rent Is Too Damned High" political party ticket. Well, yup, the rent IS too damned high, and other necessities of life (like food) are more expensive.
What's a family to do if they make too much money to get Stage Three Child Care services, but they're still barely making ends meet because the Bay Area is one of the most expensive places to live in Amerikkka?
Jerry Brown isn't Governor Moonbeam any more, he became Jerry the Gentrifier of Oakland (he loved it when the U.S. Supreme Court said it was okay to condemn private property if a developer wanted it for a mega-bucks project, even if that project had nothing to do with "improving" a city or town). California stopped being the Moonbeam state years ago too.
Parent Voices is across the street from a school on Church Street in San Francisco. I spent a bit of a Saturday with organizer Maria Luz Torre and my POOR Magazine family member Jewnbug (the poormagazine Parent Voices skolah) a while back for an outdoor sidewalk sail to raise money for the organization.
The comments from Maria at the beginning of this article are not the last word. Maria also repeated how important it is for poor parents to "stay connected to Parent Voices, POOR Magazine, or other groups in the fight--if they don't they miss out" on what they deserve. It isn't easy, but fighting back gets results.