One California Head Start program has closed and three others face imminent closure due to the federal government shutdown, affecting about 1,000 very-low-income children and 270 teachers.
The closures would leave families scrambling for child care and teachers without income. The longer the shutdown drags on, the more programs are at risk of shuttering.
“Losing a Head Start program has detrimental effects not just on children and families, but also has immense ripple effects on the community,” said Melanee Cottrill, executive director of Head Start California. “Head Start is far more than a safe place for children to learn and grow — it’s a community hub … The negative effect on regional employment and the local economy would be felt many times over.”
A Head Start program in Santa Cruz County has already closed, upending child care arrangements for hundreds of families.
Encompass Community Services, a Santa Cruz nonprofit, was forced to close all 11 of its Head Start centers on Thursday because no one at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was available to process the group’s Nov. 1 grant renewal or send money.
“Head Start is part of the fabric of this community,” said Elaine Johnson, chair of the Encompass board. “This is about babies, children, and families not having access to basic needs.”
The centers, mostly clustered in the farmlands around Watsonville, serve some of the lowest-income families in the region. About 300 children are enrolled in its program.
3,000 children at risk
Three more Head Start programs in California — in Los Angeles, the Central Valley and the far northern part of the state — also have Nov. 1 grant deadlines and face imminent closure. Another four programs with Dec. 1 deadlines would be the next to shutter if the government shutdown continues.
In all, more than 3,000 children and hundreds of teachers at those eight centers would be affected within the next month if Congress fails to adopt a budget.
Nationwide, about 134 programs serving 65,000 children face closure this week due to the shutdown — with Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Missouri having the highest numbers of children affected, according to the National Head Start Association. Even if Congress agrees to fund the federal government this week, re-opening would not happen immediately: It could take up to six weeks for the money to reach individual Head Start centers.
Popular and effective
Founded in the mid-1960s, Head Start is a free child care program providing meals and a play-based academic curriculum for children from birth through age 5. Families can get prenatal visits, referrals for medical and dental care, housing and job assistance and other services.
To qualify, families must earn below the federal poverty level — $26,650 a year for a family of three. In California, that bar is very difficult to meet due to the higher minimum wage. Last year, the state’s Head Start centers enrolled about 83,000 children at 1,835 centers.
Head Start, created to give low-income families a boost, has largely been successful: Alumni have higher graduation rates, higher college-going rates and are less likely to live in poverty as adults, one study found.
It’s also very popular. When President Donald Trump threatened to cut the entire program this past spring, Head Start supporters flooded Congress with urgent pleas to save it from the budget axe. They succeeded, although other government cuts have left a deep impact on the organization and its families.
Potential cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and Medicaid would have an immediate impact on Head Start families, while other recent cuts have already hampered Head Start’s day-to-day operations, Cottrill said.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which oversees Head Start, closed half of its regional offices in April, leading to long delays in processing paperwork. For Head Start centers, that’s meant months-long holdups for routine purchases such as dishwashers, Cottrill said, along with delays related to minor program changes.
Back-up plans
In Santa Cruz, Encompass was able to partner with the Pajaro Valley Unified School District in Watsonville to temporarily provide child care to most of the families enrolled in Head Start, starting next week. But the past few months of budget uncertainty have been nerve-wracking, Kim Morrisson, interim executive director, said.
The organization has been in talks with a slew of state and local agencies to come up with back-up plans for funding the $9-million-a-year program.
“We’re trying to roll with the punches and just focus on serving our families,” Morrison said. “Head Start is a big, national program. We just can’t imagine a world where it doesn’t exist.”