Baker-Polito Administration Awards $6 Million for Early Education Programs

The Baker-Polito Administration and the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) today announced $6 million in grant awards for facility improvements at early education and care programs that serve low-income children.  Six agencies were selected to receive an Early Education and Out of School Time (EEOST) capital improvement grant, which will help increase the quality of their early education programs through critical facility repairs and renovations.

Early Education and Care Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy made the announcement at YMCA Cape Cod in Hyannis, the site of one of the facilities funded by the 2019 grant awards.

“Our administration is pleased to support facility improvements at early education and care programs throughout the Commonwealth to provide families with the resources necessary for success in and out of the classroom,” said Governor Charlie Baker.  “Renovating and repairing child care facilities helps achieve the administration’s goal of providing quality early education and care in all Massachusetts communities.”

“Since taking office, we have provided over $25 million in funding to 31 non-profit agencies operating licensed child care programs,” said Lt. Governor Karyn Polito.  “These critical investments provide safer environments for children to learn in, while providing educators with modernized facilities.”

“These grants were created to help non-profit providers serving children in low-income communities improve their facilities because we know that building deficiencies impact the quality of teaching and learning in early childhood,” said Education Secretary James Peyser.

The Early Education and Out of School Time capital improvement grants are financed through the state’s capital budget and provide matching funds that leverage private investment.  The Baker-Polito Administration’s FY19 Capital Budget Plan included funding for the Early Education and Out of School Time capital improvement grant program.

“Well-designed buildings, classrooms and play spaces help provide high-quality learning environments in which children grow and thrive,” said Early Education and Care Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy.  “The $6 million in grant awards this year — the highest amount since the EEOST Capital Fund inception — will support better program settings for over 700 children across the state.”

“All children deserve to learn in enriching environments and their teachers deserve well-equipped facilities,” said Theresa Jordan, Director of Children’s Facilities Finance, CEDAC Children’s Investment Fund.  “The EEOST Capital Fund is creating those environments across the Commonwealth and leveraging additional resources in support of high-quality early childhood education and out-of-school time.”

The following organizations received grants:

Lead Agency Service Area Award
Cape Ann YMCA/YMCA of North Shore, Inc. Gloucester $1,000,000
Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Lawrence $1,000,000
Greater Lowell Family YMCA, Inc. Lowell $1,000,000
Horizons for Homeless Children, Inc. Boston $1,000,000
YMCA of Cape Cod, Inc. Cape and Islands $1,000,000
YWCA of Central Massachusetts Greater Worcester $1,000,000

“We are so honored to be selected for this transformational funding since Hyannis demonstrates an incredible need for high quality and affordable child care options,” said YMCA Cape Cod President and CEO, Stacie Peugh.  “This new early education center located in the heart of downtown Hyannis will offer a state-of-the-art environment with optimal learning opportunities for children led by loving early childhood professionals.  The YMCA Cape Cod is thankful for the investment in our children’s future.”

All of the programs selected to receive a grant award serve publicly-subsidized families, have demonstrated financial need and have secured additional funding to pay for a portion of their project costs. The Department of Early Education and Care partnered with CEDAC’s affiliate, the Children’s Investment Fund, to administer the grants. All of the grantees are non-profit corporations or organizations in which a non-profit corporation has a controlling interest.

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SourceDepartment of Early Education and Care, Executive Office of Education

YMCA Cape Cod gets $1M grant for child care center

The Hyannis Village Marketplace will be home to a new early education center this fall with help from a $1 million capital grant the YMCA Cape Cod received from the Baker-Polito administration.

“It’s exactly what the Cape Cod community needs,” YMCA Cape Cod President and CEO Stacie Peugh said during a press conference Thursday at 261 Stevens St.

“There needs to be affordable child care across the state, and Cape Cod is certainly no different,” Samantha Aigner-Treworgy, commissioner of the state Department of Early Education and Care, said during the event.

YMCA Cape Cod was one of six agencies in Massachusetts receiving a total of $6 million in Early Education and Out of School Time capital improvement awards to repair and renovate facilities serving low-income children.

The YMCA will use the money to renovate a space at the Village Marketplace and convert it to five classrooms for 65 infants, toddlers and preschoolers, YMCA officials said.

The goal is to open by September 2020, Peugh said.

This is the third time YMCA Cape Cod has applied for the grant, Peugh said.

An estimated 60% of families using the facility are expected to benefit from vouchers from the state and nonprofit organizations, including YMCA scholarships, Peugh said.

The YMCA also has a mix of payers — including subsidized and private — at six early learning centers in West Barnstable, Falmouth, Brewster and Harwich, Peugh said.

There is a possibility the new facility will be a Head Start center, since YMCA Cape Cod is applying for the Cape’s Head Start license, Peugh said.

Head Start serves children from low-income families.

For decades, an organization called Cape Cod Child Development held the Cape Cod license.

But the license was transferred to the Community Development Institute this past summer in the wake of a scathing report on Cape Cod Child Development by federal officials.

State Rep. William Crocker, R-Centerville, addressed the issue during the press conference, saying, “recently we’ve seen a bit of a shakeup in early education on Cape Cod.”

The new facility will help ease parents’ fears over lack of affordable child care, Crocker said.

It’s a “much-needed educational facility in what can really be considered the center of Hyannis,” he said.

“When completed, the (Department of Early Education and Care) will have the needed elements to keep children on a healthy and happy course,” Crocker said. “I look forward to seeing it open for business, and by business I mean the business of caring for children.”

State Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Truro, called the endeavor “tremendously wonderful in a partisan world, which is refreshing.”

But he said more needed to be done.

“We need to get to universal pre-kindergarten in the state,” he said.

“I’d really like to see all of our towns stepping up to provide universal pre-K options. I challenge us to double down on that,” he said.

The presence of the Kennedy and Koch families in the town of Barnstable makes it appear as though there is an endless pool of wealth on Cape Cod, state Rep. David Vieira, R-Falmouth, said.

But many families are living “paycheck to paycheck and stipend to stipend,” he said.

The grant will allow early education teachers to expand their clientele and parents to work and “raise their children in a loving, caring environment,” said Vieira, whose daughter attends an after-school program run by YMCA Cape Cod at Mullen-Hall School in Falmouth.

State Rep. Timothy R. Whelan, R-Brewster, said his wife worked as director of a group day care center when his daughters were young, and the girls benefited from the program.

The girls learned to be kind, participate in groups and make friends, Whelan said.

“It allowed my wife, Lisa, to work and help support our family,” he said.

Cyr said young families on the Cape are of necessity working families and need affordable child care and housing.

The courtyard outside the new early childhood center at the marketplace will be converted into a playground that will be open to Hyannis Village residents during off-hours, Peugh said.

According to YMCA Cape Cod officials, 100 families with children live in rental apartments above the marketplace.

The other agencies receiving state capital grants of $1 million each were the Cape Ann YMCA/YMCA of North Shore in Gloucester; Greater Lawrence Community Action Council; Greater Lowell Family YMCA; Horizons for Homeless Children in Boston; and YWCA of Central Massachusetts.

SourceCape Cod Times

YMCA Cape Cod To Receive $1 Million Grant for New Child Care Program

On Thursday December 19th, Early Education and Care Commissioner Samantha Aigner-Treworgy; Senator Julian Cyr, and Representatives Will Crocker, David Vieira and Tim Whelan; and YMCA Cape Cod President and CEO Stacie Peugh will announce a $1 million grant award from the state to the YMCA Cape Cod that will fund the opening of a new child care program in Hyannis.

The YMCA Cape Cod is one of six (6) organizations across the state that will receive a $1 million award in 2019 from the Early Education and Care and Out-of-School Time (EEOST) Capital Fund – Facilities Improvement Grant program, which is jointly administered by the Department of Early Education and Care and the Children’s Investment Fund, an affiliate of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC).

These grant awards will help support positive outcomes for the enrolled children by providing high quality child care environments and settings that support their learning and development.

The YMCA child care center will be located at the Village Marketplace in Hyannis.

For more information on this grant program visit:   https://www.mass.gov/service-details/early-education-and-out-of-school-time-eeost-capital-fund

SourceCapeCodToday.com

Child Care of the Berkshires Ready for Next Renovation Step

Child Care of the Berkshires took a moment Friday to mark the end of the first phase of its $1.75 million renovation — and the start of the second.
It’s been a long journey, said President and CEO Anne Nemetz-Carlson, as she welcomed family, supporters and financial backers to an open house at the Sarah T. Haskins School to see some of the progress that’s been made.
There’s a brand-new accessible bathroom and new doors on the first floor, new classrooms for school-age children on the second floor (moved from the crowded basement) and hidden but just as important work on utilities — a large underground oil tank was removed and three new smaller ones installed inside and the electrical was not only updated but shifted to commercial, which has helped contain costs.
“I knew there was some money out there and I wanted to chase it,” Nemetz-Carlson said. “Now the board is a wonderful board they said, OK, good luck. Go for a million dollars. I want to tell you that I went three times for that million dollars. I got the first rejection. I got the second rejection, but the third was a great announcement.”
The bulk of the funding is that $1 million grant from the state Department of Early Education and Children’s Investment Fund, with balance coming from a capital campaign with significant support from local banking institutions, foundations, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The nonprofit has signed a $1.2 million construction contract with Souliere & Zepka Construction for the next phase that will include an elevator that will reach from the basement to the second floor, new accessible bathrooms upstairs, a fire supression system and other work.
This next step was celebrated with songs from the school-age and early childhood children and the cutting of a caution tape by Chappell siblings Jazlene,11, and Gioni, 5.
The child-care program has been housed in the 1922 building since 1980 and initially shared space with the public school until it closed a few years later. There have been a few updates, including two small renovations and building repairs. But the structure was lacking space, accessibility, updated utilities and security.
 Mayor Thomas Bernard said the renovation will also have a beneficial effect on the 85 full and part-time staff who work in the building.
“It’s going to make a tremendous difference on this building. But I think what we just saw and what we all know, is the impact of CCB isn’t in the building or the facility,” said Bernard. “It’s in the people, the staff, the directors, the funders, the families who day in day out, come and those who show up to work on behalf of these precious, and these precocious, children. …
“So we know renovating the building is important. It’s long overdue. But we all know that it’s what happens inside the building that matters.”
The center serves nearly 100 children ranging from infants to school age and sees some 2,000 parents and children a year. In addition to the child care, it operates the Family Center of Northern Berkshire providing parent resources and training, and a free clothing exchange.
State Rep. John Barrett III, who became the city’s mayor about the same time Nemetz-Carlson became CCB’s leader, joked that he’d told her to do whatever she wanted as long as she didn’t bother him.
But the condition of Haskins School wasn’t a joke when the child-care agency first moved in under Mayor Richard Lamb.
“You build upon your past and saving this building was so important to me at that time,” Barrett said. “I just left the fourth grade class as a teacher in January of 1984 and knew the importance of what you’re about to embark on. … We had no money in the city of North Adams and we knew we had to save this building. The place was literally falling apart at that time.”
He said Nemetz-Carlson’s vision and drive had been instrumental in not only keeping the building functioning with her dedicated staff and board, but in building a community to nurture the future of North Adams.
“What you have today is just a testament to a lot of people’s hard work,” Barrett said, declaring that at some point, Nemetz-Carlson’s name will be enshrined in the structure in some way.
The work at CCB is more personal for former Mayor Richard Alcombright, who now has a granddaughter attending its program.
Alcombright said often military and public safety are lauded as heroes, and while it’s right to do that, the work that so many do for the most vulnerable in our community — seniors, veterans, the disabled and the “most precious,” our children — should also be recognized.
“She’s been in this place 31 months and for 31 months, there wasn’t a day I worried,” he said. “She’s cared for, she’s fed, she’s taught and she’s learning. She’s happy. She’s encouraged but most of all she’s loved. …
“That is what this place is all about: love.”

SourceiBerkshires

Cost of early child care is unsustainable

Two recent articles (“In academia, a caste system for parents,” Page A1, Dec. 1; “Poor workers struggling with a child-care debt trap,” Page A1, Dec. 2) demonstrate that parents at every income level struggle to afford quality early care and education because of the high cost.

The responsibility of paying for K-12 public education falls on us all, regardless of whether we have children. But parents of young children bear nearly all of the expenses related to early care and education. Although these costs are high, data from Massachusetts suggest that they would be even higher if early educators were not, in effect, subsidizing our system by working for poverty wages.

The 2018 Massachusetts Early Care and Education Workforce Study found that nearly 30 percent of early educators receive at least two forms of public assistance to meet basic needs, such as housing. The compensation they received for their work in no way matched their professional credentials or their skills and responsibilities.

survey of early education available in Boston found that in 2017, there were almost 41,000 children age 5 or younger living in the city, with just 932 licensed providers of early childhood education offering 26,278 seats. Clearly, this isn’t

For innovative financing ideas, we can look to the US military, which identified the lack of quality options for child care as a military readiness issue. In the mid-1980s, the Department of Defense noted that many service members were abandoning the armed forces, citing a lack of education options for their young children. In response, Congress passed the Military Child Care Act of 1989, which caps fees for families based on income, with the military making up the difference. Teachers earn more than their civilian counterparts while also receiving annual raises and health care and retirement benefits.

Whatever we end up doing — and we must do something — will require financial investment from both the public and private sectors.

Anne Douglass

Boston

The writer is an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she also directs the bachelor’s and post-master’s certificate programs in early education and care.

SourceThe Boston Globe

Springfield’s Educare Facility Is State-Of-The-Art In Every Respect

Nikki Burnett says Springfield’s Old Hill neighborhood and those surrounding it certainly need the gleaming new $14 million Educare facility constructed next door to the Elias Brookings Elementary School on Walnut Street.

More to the point, though, she told BusinessWest, they deserve this facility, which can only be described with that phrase state-of-the-art when it comes to everything from its programs to its play areas to its bathrooms.

“Mason Square, Old Hill, McKnight, Bay, all those neighborhoods … they’re so rich in history, so they’re rich in great success stories that have come out of here and are still coming out of here,” said Burnett, the recently named executive director of the 27,000-square-foot facility, who should know; she grew up there herself. “People like Ruth Carter, who just won an Oscar for the costume design in the movie Black Panther — she’s from Springfield.

“We have to celebrate those things, and we have to model those things for our children so they can see that they have greatness in them,” she went on. “One of the very important things about Educare is that it aligns potential with opportunity. I believe all children are born with immense potential, but many do not have the same opportunity to realize that, so Educare will give them that push — it will help readjust their trajectory.”

That’s why this area of the city, traditionally among the poorest neighborhoods in the state, deserves this Educare facility, just the 24th of its kind in the country and the only one in Massachusetts, she continued, adding quickly that this building, and the Educare model itself, were designed to show decision makers and society in general what all young children deserve and what has to be done so that they can all enjoy a similar experience.

Mary Walachy, executive director of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, which spearheaded efforts to bring the Educare facility to fruition, agreed.

“The message being sent here is that it costs money to do this work well,” she said. “It costs money to fund quality at the level that children in this community and others deserve, and we can’t expect outcomes that we want from children if the investment is not there at the front end.”

Considering those comments, Educare is certainly much more than a building, and those who visit it — and many will in the weeks and months to come — will come to understand that.

Indeed, the facility set to open later this year, supported by the Buffett Early Childhood Fund and to be operated in partnership with Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, is, for lack of a better term, a standard — or the new standard when it comes to early-childhood education.

And it is, as Burnett and Walachy noted, a model — hopefully to be emulated — that incorporates everything science says young children need to flourish. This includes data utilization, high-quality teaching practices (three teachers to a classroom instead of the traditional two), embedded professional development, and intensive family engagement.

All this and more will come together at the much-anticipated facility, which will provide 141 children up to age 5 (already enrolled at a Head Start facility in that neighborhood) and their families with a full-day, full-year program that Burnett projects will be a place to learn — and not just for the young children enrolled there.

The Educare facility in Springfield is just one of 24 in the country and the only one in Massachusetts.

“Educare is going to be a demonstration site; we’re going to be able to bring in students of education, social work, counseling and therapy, and other areas from across the state and have them observe and learn our model,” she explained. “We understand that 141 children is not every child; however, what we learn here, we’re going to be able to send out — others can do what we’re doing. And on a policy level, it’s my hope that legislators can see the success of this and realize that, when they’re making out the budget, it needs to be funded so everyone can enjoy Educare quality.

“Educare is not going to be on every corner,” she went on. “But that doesn’t mean that the quality of Educare cannot be beneficial to all children.”

For this issue and its focus on education, BusinessWest toured the Educare facility and talked with Burnett and others about what this unique early-education center means for Springfield and especially those young people who walk through its doors.

New School of Thought

Janis Santos, the longtime director of Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start, recalled that, when she toured the Educare facility recently as construction was winding down, she became quite emotional.

“I have to be honest, I started crying,” said Santos, honored roughly a year ago by BusinessWest as one of its Women of Impact for 2018. “One of the construction-crew members said, ‘why are you crying?’ and I said, ‘because I’m so happy.’

“Educare is going to be a demonstration site; we’re going to be able to bring in students of education, social work, counseling and therapy, and other areas from across the state and have them observe and learn our model.”

“This is a dream come true,” she went on, adding that the facility provides dramatic evidence of how far early-childhood education has come during her career — it was considered babysitting when she got her start — and how important it is to the overall development of young people.

Tears of joy have been a common emotional response among those who have toured the site, especially those involved in this initiative from the beginning, but there have been others as well. Indeed, Burnett told BusinessWest, when the staff members assigned to the Educare center visited the well-appointed teachers’ room, many of them started clapping.

These reactions provide ample evidence that the six-year journey to get the facility built and the doors open was certainly time and energy incredibly well-spent.

By now, most are familiar with the story of how an Educare facility — again, one of only 24 in the country — came to be in Springfield. It’s a story laced with serendipity and good fortune at a number of turns.

It begins back in 2014 when an early-childhood center on Katherine Street in Springfield closed down abruptly, leaving more than 100 children without classroom seats, said Walachy, adding that the Davis Foundation began looking at other options for early education in that building.

One of them was Educare, she went on, adding that officials with the Buffett Foundation and other agencies involved, as well as architects, came and looked at the property. They quickly determined that it was not up to the high standards for Educare centers.

“Their model is ‘make it a state-of-the-art, unbelievable building to send a strong message that this is what all kids deserve,’” said Walachy, adding that, after those inspections and being informed that a new facility would have to be built at a cost of more than $12 million, the Educare concept was essentially put on the shelf.

And it stayed there for the better part of two years until an anonymous donor from outside the Bay State who wanted to fund an Educare facility came into the picture.

“This individual pledged to pay for at least half the cost of building an Educare somewhere in the country, and she was willing to do it here in Springfield,” she said, adding that the donor has written checks totaling more than $9 million for both the construction and operation of the facility.

With this commitment, those involved went about raising the balance of the needed funds — the Davis Foundation and another donor committed $2 million each, and state grants as well as New Market Tax Credits were secured, bringing the total raised to more than $20 million — and then clearing what became another significant hurdle, finding a site on which to build.

Indeed, the Educare model is for these facilities to be built adjacent to elementary schools, and in Springfield, that proved a challenging mandate. But the tornado that ravaged the city, and especially the Old Hill area, in 2011, forcing the construction of a new Brookings School, actually provided an answer.

Indeed, land adjacent to the new school owned by Springfield College was heavily damaged by the tornado, making redevelopment a difficult proposition. Thus, the college became an important partner in the project by donating the needed land.

But while it’s been a long, hard fight to get this far, the journey is far from over, said both Burnett and Walachy, noting that another $500,000 must be raised to fund an endowment that will help cover operating expenses at the school.

And raising that money is just one of many responsibilities within Burnett’s lengthy job description, a list that also includes everything from becoming an expert on the Educare model to attending regular meetings of Educare facility directors — there’s one in New Orleans later this year, for example.

At the moment, one of the duties assuming much of her time is acting as a tour guide. She even joked that she hasn’t mastered the art of walking backward while talking with tour participants, but she’s working on it. To date, tours have been given to city officials, funders and potential funders, hired staff members, like those aforementioned teachers, and, yes, members of the media.

BusinessWest took its own tour, one that featured a number of stops, because items pointed out are certainly not typical of those found in traditional early-education centers.

“I literally cannot wait to see the children in there — that will be a special moment.”

Starting with what Burnett and others called the “outside-in” of the building’s design, which, as that phrase indicates, works to bring the outside environment into the school to provide continuity and the sense that the school is part of the larger world. Thus, green, grass-like carpeting was put down in the entranceways, and green carpet prevails pretty much throughout the facility. Meanwhile, the brick façade on the exterior is continued inside the building.

Throughout the building, there are generous amounts of light and state-of-the-art facilities throughout, from the well-equipped play areas inside and out to the two sinks in each of the classrooms — one for food preparation, the other for hand washing — to the restrooms designed especially for small people.

In addition, each classroom is equipped with small viewing areas with one-way mirrors so that so-called ‘master teachers’ and others can see and evaluate what’s happening.

In all, there are 12 classrooms, seven for infants and toddlers and five for preschool. As noted earlier, they will be places of learning, and not just for the students.

Model of Excellence

Returning to that emotional tour of the Educare facility she took a few weeks ago, Santos said that, as joyous and uplifting as it was, she’s looking forward to the next one even more.

“I literally cannot wait to see the children in there — that will be a special moment,” she told BusinessWest, putting almost a half-century of work in early childhood behind those words.

She can’t wait because students will be learning and playing in a facility that really was only a dream a few years ago — a dream that came true.

It’s a facility that those students truly need, but as Burnett and all the others we spoke said, it’s one they deserve — one that all students deserve.

SourceBusiness West

YWCA unveils Under One Roof project

The YWCA cut the ribbon for its “Under One Roof” project on Friday, showing off the extension of its building, containing residential housing and after school programming.

SourceSouth Coast Today

Some Boston neighborhoods face severe shortage of child care — and it’s unaffordable almost everywhere

The chasm between supply and potential demand for child care is so wide across much of Boston that in some neighborhoods, there aren’t enough seats for roughly half the children, according to a new report from the Boston Opportunity Agenda.

Only about one in four children under the age of 5 has access to high-quality programs, as defined under state and national standards, the report found. That shortage is most pronounced in Roslindale, West Roxbury, and Hyde Park, which lack high-quality slots for nine out of every 10 children, the report found.

The report from the Boston Opportunity Agenda, a public/private partnership focused on education, provides what child care advocates say is the first detailed picture of some of the most vexing challenges in the city’s early education and care programs.

“One of the biggest problems Boston has tried to solve is, how many children are we trying to serve? In some communities, they don’t even know, and are blaming each other” for gaps and surpluses, said Amy O’Leary, a director at Strategies for Children, a Massachusetts organization that advocates for high-quality early education programs.

The report found child-care shortages are most acute for children aged 2 and younger, with the biggest squeeze in East Boston, where there are only enough slots for 1 in 10 infants. The richest supply, researchers said, is in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, where the gap is less than half that size.

Early education programs are somewhat easier to find for children between 3 and 5 years old because of preschool and public kindergarten easing the care crunch. While gaps still exist in some Boston neighborhoods, the report found that there is actually a surplus of about 1,233 slots citywide.

But one problem is inescapable: the high cost of care. Federal guidelines define affordable care as care that costs no more than 10 percent of a family’s income. By that standard, the average cost of infant care is unaffordable for all neighborhoods in Boston, the report said. The percentage of income spent on child care in the Back Bay and Beacon Hill is just over 10 percent, compared with over 55 percent of the median family income in Roxbury and nearly 40 percent in East Boston.

“Child care in Boston affects everyone, no matter where you live, no matter your income bracket, no matter what you look like. It is not affordable for anybody, and it’s difficult to access,” said Kristin McSwain, executive director of the Boston Opportunity Agenda.

The organization’s researchers pooled local, state, and federal information from 2017, the most recent available, including census data, the number of child-care programs in each ZIP code, and the number of slots in each program. The data included family-based and center-based care, as well as programs in Boston Public Schools, and in charter, independent, and parochial schools.

But the researchers acknowledged they weren’t able to pinpoint how many parents in each neighborhood actually want care for their children, or how many who stay at home would return to the workforce if high quality, affordable care were an option.

Eyoda Williams, a 45-year-old Dorchester mother of six children, understands those complex, chaotic equations. When her son, now 11, needed care, she would scramble to get her older children ready for school, then trek from Dorchester to a center with an opening in Brighton that cost $300 weekly, then head on to Newton for work.

“Having kids is expensive,” said Williams, a personal trainer and fitness instructor. She just secured a hard-to-find preschool slot for her youngest child, who is 3 and has special needs. Before that, she’d relied on child care at the YMCA in Hyde Park, where Williams works part time.

“I wouldn’t be able to be here without that,” Williams said. “By the grace of God, it’s working.”

A recent survey by the City of Boston found that more than one-quarter of stay-at-home parents, the vast majority of them women, couldn’t work because they lacked day care. Nearly 60 percent of those parents cited cost as the biggest obstacle, and also found that parents of children under 2 had the hardest time finding available slots.

The challenges facing child-care providers are also daunting. They say they struggle to keep quality workers and provide decent wages, without making the cost of care unaffordable for families.

The size of the quality gap remains tough to gauge precisely. McSwain, who directed the report, said up to 30 percent of the programs in the city don’t even seek state accreditation because it’s so complicated and expensive. Programs that don’t accept state subsidies aren’t required to seek accreditation.

“So that’s 30 percent that we can’t say anything about their quality,” McSwain said. “They may be really high-quality, and we may be 30 percent better off than we think we are.”

Bill Eddy, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Early Education and Care, the industry’s trade association, said many programs are high-quality, and the $80 million invested by lawmakers over the last several years to boost low-paid workers’ wages has helped retain more — and better  employees.

“The key to quality is having a workforce that is consistent,” Eddy said.

Dr. Michael Yogman, a Cambridge pediatrician who chairs the child mental health task force for the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said such stable relationships in day care is critical for children’s development.

“The quality of the teacher is probably the most important thing,” he said. “Those kids will do better in kindergarten, and be more literate in third grade, assuming the quality programs continue.”

The report made several recommendations, including a call to create stronger partnerships among providers, the city, and various agencies and nonprofits. Those partnerships would be able to collect more detailed data that could more finely pinpoint actual demand by neighborhoods.

It also suggested businesses work more closely with providers to subsidize some slots for employees’ children. This, the report said, could create consistent care options for workers, while also providing steadier revenue for child-care facilities.


Kay Lazar can be reached at kay.lazar@globe.com Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKayLazar.

SourceThe Boston Globe

Walker Park Apartments and Delphine’s Courtyard Opened

Mayor Martin J. Walsh today joined the community development agency Urban Edge, elected officials, community leaders and neighbors to celebrate the opening of the Walker Park Apartments and Delphine’s Courtyard, consisting of 49 units of affordable family housing and a pocket park in Egleston Square. The City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development and the Community Preservation Fund provided more than $2.8 million in total for the new homes and courtyard.

“Today we celebrate the creation of 49 new affordable homes, a crucial step forward in our goal of preserving our neighborhoods,” said Mayor Walsh. “Along with our partners, the City of Boston is making big investments in Egleston Square, increasing opportunity for families and helping us keep housing affordable and accessible. I want to thank Urban Edge and everyone involved in this project for their work in making these new affordable homes possible.”

Mayor Walsh with members of the Walker family.

Mayor Walsh with members of the Walker family.

The Walker Park Apartments redeveloped three formerly vacant or underutilized parcels adjacent to the Egleston Square Branch of the Boston Public Library and in the Egleston Square Main Street District. The development is named for longtime community activist Delphine Walker, whose home stood on one of the development sites. All of the 49 new apartments have been rented to households who earn at or below 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), including eight apartments reserved for families earning 30 percent of AMI or below.

“Urban Edge is proud that we have led investment in Egleston Square and is doing so in a way that honors the neighborhood’s past while providing more opportunities for quality housing for members of the community,” said Natacha Dunker, president of Urban Edge’s Board of Directors. “We are so grateful to Mayor Walsh, the Department of Neighborhood Development, and all of our funders for their support of this important project.”

“Today, we celebrate another victory for our city and community: new construction of 49 income-restricted units and 34 off-street parking spots,” said State Representative Liz Malia (D-11th Suffolk). “This is exactly the type of housing we need to build in Boston and specifically in the Egleston Square Neighborhood. The face of our community depends on it, and I’m  grateful to Urban Edge and the City for having the long-term vision to realize this project and others like it.”

The Walker Park Apartments now boast 13 one-bedroom, 28 two-bedroom, and eight three-bedroom family apartments, an elevator for accessibility, on-site laundry facilities, on-site parking, and Delphine’s Courtyard funded by the Community Preservation Fund. In accordance with state guidelines, funds generated from the Community Preservation Act fund for affordable housing, historic preservation, and parks and open space projects.

“My mother bought her home in Roxbury at a time when many people were not making investments in this community, and she worked with others to strengthen Egleston Square as a neighborhood,” said Pamela Walker, daughter of Delphine Walker. “We are so grateful that Urban Edge has honored her by naming both the apartment complex and the courtyard after her.”

“Since I moved to Walker Park, my life feels different. I can see how my children always have a smile on their faces,” said Cassandra Amazan, a resident of Walker Park Apartments. “It was a great feeling seeing them choosing their own room and making plans of how they would decorate them. It is not only about having or walking in to my own apartment now, it’s about feeling accomplished in many ways and that this is opening new doors for me and my family.”

In accordance with the City of Boston’s Green Affordable Housing Program, Walker Park Apartments will utilize a high-efficiency heating system as well as Energy Star rated appliances. The development employs environmentally friendly design features that meets the U.S. Green Building Council LEED Homes Silver certifiable standard. The development also met the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star standards. The development team is made up of Urban Edge, Prellwitz Chilinski Associates, and NEI General Contracting, Inc.

The Walker Park Apartments have been made possible by funding from the City of Boston, and State and Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits from the Commonwealth’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Financing team members also included Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Brookline Bank, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, MassDevelopment, MassHousing, Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation, Massachusetts Housing Partnership, US Bank Corporation, and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Walker Park Apartments strongly aligns with the City’s housing goals outlined in Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030. Mayor Walsh recently increased the City’s overall housing targets from 53,000 to 69,000 new units by 2030 to meet Boston’s population growth. These updated housing goals build on Mayor Walsh’s commitment to increasing access to home ownership, preventing displacement and promoting fair and equitable housing access.

Since the release of the original Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030 plan in 2014, income-restricted housing stock, designed to increase affordable housing, has grown along with overall new production: nearly 20 percent of housing units are income restricted, and 25 percent of rental units are income restricted. In total, after creating an additional 15,820 units of income-restricted housing, Boston will have nearly 70,000 units of income-restricted housing by 2030.

Mayor Walsh’s 2019 housing security legislative package focuses on expanding upon the work that Boston has done to address the region’s affordable housing crisis and displacement risks for tenants by proposing new and strengthening current tools to leverage Boston’s prosperity and create sustainable wealth opportunities that make Boston a more inclusive and equitable city. The housing security bills proposed seek to help existing tenants, particularly the elderly, remain in their homes, and creates additional funding for affordable housing.

For more information on the City’s work to create more housing, please visit: Housing A Changing City: Boston 2030.

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SourceMayor's Office

Meeting the new commissioner of early education and care

On Tuesday, early educators from across the state attended a meet-and-greet with the new commissioner of the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), Samantha Aigner-Treworgy – although, as she explained to one attendee, she goes by Sam.

Joel Cox, Partners for Community, and Aigner-Treworgy

“Thank you all for being here and for the very, very warm welcome home,” Aigner-Treworgy, a Massachusetts native, said at the event, which was held at the downtown Boston law firm Goulston & Storrs.

Representative Alice Peisch (D-Wellesley) and Aigner-Treworgy

As we’ve blogged, Aigner-Treworgy comes to Massachusetts from Chicago where she was the chief of early learning.

Alyssa Corrigan, Somerville Public Schools, and Anne Douglass, UMass Boston

Sworn in as commissioner last month, Aigner-Treworgy will attend her first meeting of the Board of the Department of Early Education and Care at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, September 10, 2019. For more information about the EEC board meeting, click here.

Aigner-Treworgy, Amy O’Leary, Strategies for Children, and Carole Charnow, CEO of The Boston Children’s Museum

For now, however, Aigner-Treworgy is happily getting to know her team, the state’s email system, and early education’s many teachers, leaders, and activists.

Kira Taj and Theresa Jordan, both of the Children’s investment Fund, and Aigner-Treworgy

She is looking forward to learning from Massachusetts’ history of early education leadership, and she’s excited about working with the field to discover what lies ahead.

Representative Paul Tucker (D- Salem) and Aigner-Treworgy

Be sure to reach out to her with your thoughts and ideas, because, as she explained on Tuesday, she’s already looking forward to hearing them:

Brigid Boyd, Khushbu Webber, and Sarah Link, from the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, with Aigner-Treworgy

“Thank you for all the support, and thank you for all the support, in advance, that you are going to give me.”

SourceEye on Early Education