Northeast Hillyard Childcare Center will offer 100 affordable childcare slots & offer longer hours to help parents who work early morning or late-night shifts; Luc Jasmin, Spokane-area child care provider, announced as care provider for new facility
SPOKANE, WA – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, joined a group of local leaders and parents in Spokane to celebrate the announcement of a new 100-slot affordable child care facility underway in the Hillyard neighborhood, as well as the announcement of the care provider.
“We know that child care is a crisis in America, and we know parents need better options,” said Sen. Cantwell. “They need to be able to go to work and know that their children have access to reliable child care.
“According to one recent analysis, in Spokane County, 5,500 workers with children under six quit their jobs due to child care issues, and another 2,800 workers were fired from their jobs due to child care issues,” the Senator continued. “So you can see — thousands of people in Spokane are desperate for this level of service.”
The new child care facility, which will be part of the Northeast Hillyard affordable housing project, will offer extended hours to help parents with atypical work schedules or longer shifts. It was made possible by a $2 million federal grant secured by Sen. Cantwell earlier this year.
“One of the biggest barriers we hear from potential employees and people in this area, especially for those off-shift roles, is child care,” said Adam Snider, Senior Director of Operations at pharmaceutical manufacturer Jubilant HollisterStier, a major employer in the area. “If parents can’t find that safe, reliable affordable care, they can’t take the next step in their careers.”
“In a lot of cases we have parents that are taking their kiddos to multiple centers,” said Luc Jasmin, the child care provider selected for the project. “With this [project] you have housing, you’re close to local employers, right off of major transit stops, so it just removes that transportation barrier that we as providers see a lot of times that our families deal with. So that means employers, your employees are coming into shift on time. If we need to call any of the parents, they’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away. So this is true accessibility.”
“This community center opens up so many doors for me — it opens up so many doors for fellow parents that I know,” said Amber MacCurdy, a local parent. “There’s so many people that I’ve seen that can’t get work because of the hours.”
For many Spokane families, child care is their single largest expense – while the average monthly rent on a 2-bedroom apartment in Spokane is $1,531, the monthly average cost of child care for a family with two children is a whopping $2,967.
In data collected by Spokane’s Northeast Community Center:
- 41% of the area’s families report fluctuating work schedules that can make finding child care arrangements more difficult.
- 85% report that they would be able to work more or find a better job if they had the right child care.
- 73% report the cost of child care has replaced paying for basic needs.
Jene Ray, Executive Director of the Northeast Community Center, and Michael Cathcart, Board Chair of the Northeast Public Development Authority and Spokane City Councilmember, also spoke at the event.
Video of yesterday’s entire press conference is HERE; video of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE; photos are HERE; and a transcript of Sen. Cantwell’s opening statement is HERE.
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