A family child care provider for 13 years, Susan Austin cares for 8 children whose attendance is supported by the Stage 3 child care threatened by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s veto. A single mother who was on public assistance herself 40 years ago, all of Austin’s clients are single mothers who are also working their way to independence.

Though if the program closes entirely, Austin says, “I will have no business. I tried to work with my parents to try to keep a roof over my head, but they couldn’t afford it.” All she has now, she said, “is my home and my dignity.”

But Austin doesn’t think of her child care as a job, but a career and a lifestyle. She says her reward is “when kids graduate college. When I take a parent from living in a car with two little kids, to getting on public assistance, to working, to her son serving two terms in Iraq.”

Then there’s something else Austin has; plenty of stories about the families she works with, takes care of and clearly worries for. Families like Monica’s*, a single mom who’s had her three children in Austin’s care for some time now.

Austin has watched Monica’s children for 7 years. Because Monica had been earning more at her current job in medical billing, Austin thought she was doing well and expected the family to be off the program within a year.

Then Austin had to tell Monica about the end of the Stage 3 program.

“She just fell apart,” Austin said. “She was just saying, ‘What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?’ Within days of me telling her, she was at the heart specialist and they were telling her she’d gone down hill.”

Austin explained that Monica had suffered a heart attack four years earlier, brought on by the birth of her youngest child. Monica’s doctors have been concerned that she might follow her mother, who’d died early of heart failure. But the news about losing access to child care may have been too much to take.

“She’s in the hospital for heart surgery right now,” Austin said tearfully, “and I’m taking care of her kids for free.”

Another of Austin’s charges is a 2 1/2 year old whose mother is in college. Austin explained that she was trying to get her master’s degree because she couldn’t get a job with a B.A., and needed child care while she was in school.

Austin, whose own adult daughter can’t find a job in Orange County, CA, even with dual High School teaching credentials in English and music, is sympathetic.

And several of Austin’s clients depend on her for help they can’t get elsewhere. “Many of the children stay with me because they have behavioral issues no one else wants to take care of,” she said.

“I have a boy who came to me three years ago. He has ADHD, he was kicking and biting me at first,” Austin said. “Now he’s in the 6th grade and he’s no longer in the principal’s office all the time, because he had stable, consistent care.” Though if the Stage 3 program closes and his mother keeps her job, Austin worries that he might have to stay by himself after school with a younger sister who’s in 2nd grade.

Susan Austin, on caring for children with ADHD:

Be patient. It’s not going to turn around over night. You need a lot of communication between parents and providers to establish consistency and structure.

The children need consistent, positive reinforcement. You should always have a calm, caring tone, even when they’re kicking you.

You’ve got to give the kids who have these issues a double dose of love, establish trust and respect with them so they know they can count on you.

“Child care is different than being on aid,” Austin said, “you don’t get it unless you work. These people have to work or they wouldn’t get care. So we’re getting them out and working, encouraging them to work. Taking it away takes away our jobs, takes away their jobs, takes away the safety and health of the children.”

“California’s primary workforce is 20-40, that’s the child bearing age,” Austin said. “Child care keeps families working in California.”

“We live in this beautiful place where the whole world wants to come for vacation and we’re turning it into a desert, … devoid of hope and future,” Austin said. “These are hard working people who just need a little support. We’re destroying the American Dream for our youth.”

“The only thing keeping me going is my faith,” Austin said. “I believe He’ll have the last word and it will be good. He’s always looked after me before, He will again, and these children and their families.”

Photo: From left to right, R. Maggie Lopez, Susan Austin and Gloria Clemens at the October 26th rally in Long Beach, where family child care providers demonstrated in front of the Women’s Conference to ask Governor Schwarzenegger to extend Stage 3 child care funding. The cuts have been halted by a judge through this week. Entry cross-posted from the Early Learning blog.

* Name changed for privacy.

Governor Schwarzenegger’s veto of almost a billion of spending, primarily for the neediest Californians couldn’t have come at a worse time.  To recap, now is a good time to allow the needy to starve, the sick to suffer, and the elderly to go unassisted, but a bad time to increase taxes a single penny on the wealthiest Californians. Sen. Steinberg has indicated that he will attempt to reverse the cuts under a new governor, but that is still a ways away.

Anyway, some legislators and child care activists held a press conference in the East Bay yesterday, and managed to get a few members of the press there. It is still pretty big news that over a quarter of a billion for working parents on CalWORKS was cut, at least for non-insiders.

Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s team has moved on.  Any discussion of that news is just rehashing battles already fought. That the cuts are about to take effect, and the devestation about to be wreaked on families across the state, well, pay no mind to that.  It just isn’t news.  Reporters spilling ink on the subject are basically historians wasting their time…or so says Aaron McLear, the governor’s spokesman.

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear this afternoon questioned why, despite today’s news conference and the veto’s impending effects, I’m bothering to report about a veto that happened weeks ago – “We’re having a presser tomorrow to overturn Prohibition. Hope you can make it.” – and referred questions to state Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.

(Asked if he really wanted to be so cavalier about a veto that will impact so many families, McLear responded by e-mail, “Sounds like you’re writing from a particular point of view – interesting reporting. Just making sure u know this story is weeks old.”) (InsideBayArea)

I suppose when you are walking through Brentwood, admiring the scenery, you don’t really see the people suffering from the cuts.  But they are real, and their stories worth telling.  That the Governor’s staff is that heartless should be no surprise at this point, though.

(California’s late state budget has been hurting child care providers, holding up reimbursement checks for time they’d already worked. Yesterday, some of the affected educators and caregivers held a press conference where family child care provider, and SEIU member, Tonia McMillian told her story.)

Hello, my name is Tonia McMillian, and I’m a licensed home-based child care provider in Bellflower. I care for 11 children, many of whom receive state subsidies to help their parents afford child care. The current budget delay has presented a mix of emotions for me and the families that I care for. For the first time in my 15 years of child care service, I have been forced to face the reality that I might have to shut my doors.  

Child care has been my passion and desire for many, many years. After completing my child care education at Long Beach City College, I decided that I would make a difference in the lives of children and, as far as I know, I did just what I set out to accomplish.

However, maintaining my business and my home with no money has proven to be a monumental challenge.

Because of the current budget stalemate, I have not been paid to care for some of these children for the last 3 months and others for the last 2 months. I can no longer plan or budget for my week. I have to take each day as it comes. I’ve extended and, in some cases over-extended, arrangements to meet my needs, i.e. utility bills, food, rent, and many other bills.

My parents need the help that the subsidies provide and are extremely grateful that I have not shut my doors…yet. Without child care, my single father who is raising his son as a single parent, will be forced to quit his job. Did I mention that he is considered one of California’s working poor? Yet, through his job, he contributes back to our economy and he can walk tall with his head held high knowing that he is working to make his life and the life of his son better.

But the loss of this income has made it extremely hard to continue to run my business. I have taken on a part-time job in addition to my child care business to pay the bills for myself and my own two children, and I have talked with all of my parents about the real possibility that in the coming weeks I may have to shut my doors in order to find other work to support my own family. This is a decision that is truly devastating for me, for I have been an excellent child care provider for 15 years and love this work, and I know that these children and parents are going to really struggle in my absence.

Almost every other child care provider in my area is in the same situation as I am. We’ve all had to cut costs dramatically since our paychecks were halted, including laying off staff who help us pay more attention to each child in our care and who also badly need these jobs.

Worse yet, the money we normally receive from the Federal Food Program is being withheld simply because the state of California can’t contribute its meager 5% share. Think about that–tens of thousands of providers in California aren’t getting their monthly food program checks–which can be anywhere from 100 to 1000 dollars a month–because the state can’t contribute their tiny 5% share and won’t release the much greater federal portion.

That’s millions of dollars being left on the table – dollars that are usually recycled back into the community through the grocery stores where we shop. Hundreds of thousands of children in the state depend on these funds to help them get nutritious meals that they might not otherwise get.

I know providers who are now feeding their own families peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles every day – just so they can afford to feed their daycare children.

I came to speak here today to put a face on this budget crisis. This is about the future of quality child care in our state, not partisan politics or politicians squabbling in Sacramento. Children are suffering. Providers and their families are suffering. And if a solution isn’t found soon we are going to be doing irreversible harm to our state’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

Thank You.

Cross posted from the Early Learning blog.

By now California’s unemployment woes have been written about again and again . Like so many other economic problems in the country, this one isn’t getting any better:

California’s jobless rate now stands at more than 6 percent after April: and some reports claim that it takes the average unemployed American approximately four months to find work, and often much longer.

And common sense relief from the federal government is nearly impossible with an administration that refuses to acknowledge the plight of working class America, and encourages others to do the same:

People need help and they need Capitol Hill to respond, but instead of some relief, an extension of unemployment benefits faces a difficult fight in the Senate and President Bush is threatening to veto.

This week, Congress will have another opportunity to rebuke these disastrous Bush administration policies.

On Thursday the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Subcommittee is considering a funding bill for key domestic programs and services under those federal departments.

Hopefully, the Subcommittee will approve a $781 million increase in the Employment Service — basically the people who connect those needing work with those who need work done. This is exactly the kind of stuff that’s critical in a recession.

Unsurprisingly, the Bush Administration is seeking to gut employment services. This bit of wanton stupidity is a nice bookend to the White House's unwillingness to extend unemployment benefits.

Progressive groups are also seeking an $874 million increase for Child Care and Development Block Grant, funding which the Bush administration wants to freeze for a 7th consecutive year. Of course, this will have consequences for real kids:

Years of flat funding have already resulted in 150,000 fewer children receiving assistance." At this rate, it is projected that 300,000 fewer children will receive child care assistance by 2010. The harsh reality is that parents "may have been forced to go into debt; return to welfare; choose lower-quality, less stable child care; or face untenable choices in their household budgets."

Finally the Subcommittee will hopefully approve a $350 million allocation for emergency preparedness in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. If there’s anything we know about a potential pandemic flu outbreak it’s that we are not adequately prepared for it. As DemforCT has warned us at dKos.

Numerous groups are mobilizing supporters to encourage the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Subcommittee to support the $781 million increase to the Employment Service, the $874 million increase in Child Care Development Block Grants, and the $350 million allocation for emergency preparedness.

AFSCME is collecting signatures for a petition in support of a $781 million increase to Employment Services, an $874 million increase in Child Care Development Block Grants, and a $350 million allocation for emergency preparedness.

Sign it. The country's in recession and the federal government needs to get the safety net unfurled before we all go splat.

(Great personal story. Health care is such a pervasive issue in this country because the system is so broken. – promoted by David Dayen)

The Senate is expected to vote on a bill in the next few days that could give family child care providers a stronger voice for affordable, quality child care.

I became a family child care provider more than seven years ago because I saw how hard it was for parents to get child care, and I wanted to make a difference in my community. I wanted parents to be able to work their way out of poverty and support their families, and I wanted their children to get a better start on life. But for every child I have cared for, there are many more who aren’t getting the care they need. It’s getting harder and harder for parents to find and afford quality child care, while good providers are closing their doors because they can’t afford to stay in the profession.

Like the 90,000 other providers in California, I have no access to affordable health insurance though my work. After paying for educational materials, nutritious food, and other expenses for my child care, what’s left for my own family amounts to less than minimum wage.

We are often left unpaid for weeks of care we’ve provided to kids on the state’s child care assistance program, because of errors in paperwork or parent eligibility that are out of our control. For many providers, a loss like that means cutting corners to make ends meet. Sometimes, it means closing their doors altogether.

Providers in California have been working together to form a union, to make child care better for kids, more reliable for parents, and a better career for providers. But because we care for children in our own homes, rather than a child care center, we’re left out of labor laws and our voice isn’t heard.

Our bill, AB 1164, would give us the freedom to form our union and negotiate with the state to improve our profession. Please help us win our union and protect child care by asking your senator to vote yes.

Providers know what it takes to deliver affordable, quality child care. With a voice, we can stand up for the services kids and families need.

Rasiene Reece-Carter