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Advocates: Child care needs 'not being met' on Cape

Cape Cod Times - 1/31/2020

Jan. 31--WEST BARNSTABLE -- Advocates for families and early childhood education say young working families on the Cape face a double bind when it comes to child care.

The same families that struggle to afford the high cost of Cape housing and child care that can rival a monthly mortgage often do not qualify for government subsidies such as Head Start, they said during a roundtable discussion with the Cape Women's Coalition on Thursday.

"Working-age adults with children are drowning on the Cape," said Lauren Barker, CEO of the Cape Cod Young Professionals organization and mother to two children, ages 7 and 9.

Three days a week of center-based child care can come to $1,200 a month, and the tab for full-time care can run $2,500, Barker said.

And that is for families lucky enough to find infant and toddler and preschool care, Barker said.

She said women who sign up for day care as soon as they find out they are pregnant are being told there is a 1 1/2 -year wait list for infant care.

"There's a need here that's not being met," Barker said during the brown bag lunch meeting at the YMCA of Cape Cod.

The child care crisis is affecting people who work in town government, technology and service industries -- "everyone who makes our local economy run," Barker said.

Although there are some subsidies for low-income families, Barker said, there is no help for what she called "the missing middle" -- full-time professionals who can barely afford their mortgage and child care costs.

The situation is so bad that panelist Andi Genser, a member of the Cape Women's Coalition advisory board, said existing child care policy "works to keep people poor."

As people work their way up in their career field and earn more money, they actually end up with less income after their subsidies are pulled, advocates for families said.

"Individuals are making more money. But they are not really making more money," said Dotty Caron, head of the early childhood program for South Shore Community Action Council.

Another issue is that fewer families qualify for subsidized early childhood programs such as the federally funded Head Start program, she said.

Head Start uses federal poverty guidelines that do not take into consideration that while workers in Massachusetts may earn more money than residents of other states, they also face a higher cost of living, Caron said.

"The guidelines don't work for us," she said.

Cape Cod Young Professionals identified affordable and accessible child care as a priority for young families in a 2018 community needs assessment, which led to the organization adopting a white paper in 2019 calling for changes on the local and state levels.

The paper quoted the Economic Policy Institute statistic that says Massachusetts has the second-highest child care costs in the nation, with a statewide average cost of $17,062 per year for one child.

Among other steps, Cape Cod Young Professionals urges towns to consider providing residents with child care scholarships and for businesses to support child care resources for their workers through on-site care providers, remote work options and other benefits.

Barker also said the organization would support state efforts to address issues affecting child care costs and challenges.

"Housing, child care and jobs are all interconnected," said Lindsay Bierwirth, a member of the Chatham 365 Task Force, which was formed by the Chatham selectmen in 2018 to support an age-diverse, year-round economy.

Follow Cynthia McCormick on Twitter: @Cmccormickcct.

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(c)2020 Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.

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