Poor Residents of Gentrified Neighborhoods Face Childcare Cutback
For public housing resident Wanda Marte, losing city subsidized childcare at the Hudson Guild in Chelsea would mean parting with a service that gives her a fighting chance to get ahead.
“I don’t know what I would do,” Marte said recently at the nonprofit on W. 26th St. “It’s very good to have a place like this. It gives us parents an opportunity to go work and have a better life.”
Marte, 38, moved into the Elliott-Chelsea Houses next to the center — and a short walk from trendy cafes and galleries — in March after a year in a shelter.
Now, the program she depends on for childcare, and many others like it across the city, are imperiled by proposed cuts — simply because the providers are located in predominantly wealthy areas.
An analysis from United Neighborhood Houses released to the Daily News shows the Bloomberg administration is determining which nonprofits should get childcare funding based largely on a zip code’s affluence.
“In the absence of (budget) money, they are having to come up with these bizarre schemes,” said Nancy Wackstein, the advocacy group’s executive director.
Her organization said the cuts will mean the loss of 47,000 slots for children in childcare and after-school programs.
The Administration for Children’s Services, which funds subsidized daycare, created targeted and nontargeted zip codes based on income and other factors, officials said.
No childcare for Ann romney’s live-in maids, cooks, and butler!