Over and over, Rita Moore has been told: If you can’t afford
childcare, stop working, collect welfare, and do it yourself.
Gilroy – Over and over, Rita Moore has been told: If you can’t afford childcare, stop working, collect welfare, and do it yourself.
“That’s why I didn’t work for the longest time,” Moore said, leaning over the counter at Maly’s beauty supply shop, where she works as assistant manager. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
For Gilroy’s lowest-income residents, subsidized childcare is available – to some. For its wealthier parents, pricier care is within the budget. But many others are stranded in the middle, too well-off to qualify for subsidies, but too poor to afford the market rate.
“It’s a real ‘Catch-22,’ ” said Cathy Boettcher, deputy director of GoKids Inc, a regional childcare nonprofit. “There’s nothing for the working poor. Parents are pushed to choose unlicensed providers – because that’s all they can afford.”
State limits cap subsidized care: For four-person families, subsidies are only available to those earning $48,372 or less, according to tables supplied by GoKids executive director Larry Drury. At GoKids’ Los Arroyos center, Drury is sometimes forced to turn away neighborhood families who qualify for low-income housing, but don’t qualify for subsidized childcare. For a four-person family, the upper income limit for the nearby Monticelli apartments hovers around $53,000. Fifteen of the 47 families who first moved into the neighboring Los Arroyos homes make more than the $48,372 limit.
“A parent will get a 50-cents-per-hour raise, and they’re no longer eligible,” said Drury. GoKids’ Los Arroyos location was intended to serve as a one-stop shop for local families’ needs. “It hasn’t been the reality.”
Even for those who qualify, subsidized care has its limits: 351 Gilroy families with 524 children were on the wait list for care as of June 1, said Jorge Ceballos, who coordinates the centralized eligibility list for the county’s Community Child Care Council. The wait list dwarfs the number of Gilroy families who’ve received subsidized care: 25 with 37 children. Meanwhile, childcare costs have soared countywide. The average cost of a year of licensed childcare rose nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2005 – from $7,320 to $10,207, according to a 2007 Working Partnerships report.
To plug the gap, GoKids has offered more than $20,000 in scholarships in past years, serving 30 kids whose families earn too much for state subsidies, but not enough for market-rate care. But this year, when United Way Silicon Valley restructured its grant process, GoKids lost its $18,000 annual grant – and the scholarships are in peril.
“It’s tough for parents to pay me,” said Irma Navarro, a licensed home childcare provider who takes in 13 kids at rates ranging from $153 to $183 per week. Blue-and-red mats blanket the playroom of her Gilroy home, overseen by a shelf stacked with picture books. Her license hangs prominently on one wall. “Some think, ‘Why bother to work? I’ll just stay at home and care for them.’ There isn’t enough for those in the middle.”
The vacuum has kept some low-income parents home, and pushed others toward unlicensed providers, said Dennis Grundhoefer, a community outreach educator at Glenview Alliance – Neighbors Achieving Success, which partners with GoKids. Others simply leave the kids with grandparents or other family.
“One hundred, seventy-five dollars a week? I can’t pay that,” said Maura Hernandez, a cook at Dutchman’s Pizza in Gilroy whose baby daughter stays home with her mother. “Then, of course, they want them to bring their own snacks.”
No formal count exists of Gilroy’s unlicensed childcares, but Grundhoefer estimates there are anywhere from 150 to 200 such centers, many operated by mothers who can’t afford childcare for their own kids, he said. GoKids’ GANAS center offers childcare classes and a path toward licensing, he added, but many providers don’t pursue a license.
“These homes can be unsafe,” Grundhoefer warned. “Mothers know the dangers – but when you’re overwhelmed with kids, it’s hard. Often they don’t get fingerprinted – it costs too much. And criminal background checks? In our area, an apartment may have three or four other tenants, because of the rent. And if they’re illegal, they’re not willing to go be fingerprinted.”
The recent closure of a west Gilroy childcare realized parents’ worst fears: Gigglebox, a childcare operated by Jody Duell out of her home on Lone Deer Way, lost its license in March. Investigator Jeffrey Hiratsuka cited Duell’s arrests in December 2006 and January 2007 for methamphetamine possession and driving under the influence, her June 2006 conviction for resisting arrest, and said she allowed two men with criminal convictions into the facility who hadn’t been fingerprinted or cleared.
Yet it wasn’t until March 19, when Duell didn’t show up for work unannounced, abandoning parents who relied on her, that Gigglebox got investigators’ attention.
“The only way licensing can do anything is if someone reports a home,” said Janet Kloffenstein, owner of Kids Park, a franchise that provides childcare a la carte for $7.50 per hour. “If you’re getting cheap childcare, you’re not going to report it.”
At a reported $180 to $220 per week, Gigglebox was hardly cheap. But the incident underscores concerns about childcare gone wrong. GANAS and similar programs at Gavilan College provide training for home childcare providers, from basic safety tips to lessons in learning disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Navarro says her coursework has revolutionized her childcare.
“I understand children’s needs better,” said Navarro. “ADHD, for instance – before, I wasn’t well-educated how to recognize that.”
Olga Morales, who began caring for children two years ago in her pumpkin-colored home on Sixth Street, is taking Gavilan courses in early childhood development. Her house is regularly scrutinized by GoKids staff, who check for danger signs. She’s also acquired her license.
“You have to invest” to be licensed, she said. “It’s very strict, and there are lots of requirements.”
For that reason, many home providers shy from getting their licenses, said Grundhoefer. But through GANAS, they can at least gain the training to keep kids safe, he added.
Moore has finally found a childcare option that works: Gavilan’s subsidized childcare center, where her kids spend half a day before her lunch break when she ferries them home to her parents. But it took some looking, she said. And she had to pass up other options, such as a lauded $400 per month childcare Moore says would break the bank.
“Thank goodness, it’s affordable for me now,” Moore said. “I tried other agencies – but the wait was so long.”
