New coalition launches to fix Oregon’s child care crisis, announces 2021 Legislative agenda

A new coalition has launched with a goal of “building a truly comprehensive child care system in Oregon.” Child Care for Oregon is a group of nonprofit organizations, labor unions, community advocates, parents, caregivers, and child care providers who have organized to address Oregon’s child care crisis—one they say existed long before COVID-19.

“COVID-19 only exacerbated the problems parents and providers were already facing,” says Eva Rippeteau, Political Coordinator at Oregon AFSCME, a coalition partner and union that represents child care providers. “Before the pandemic, every single county in our state was a child care desert, meaning there were more than three kids in need of care for every one spot available. Providers were already struggling to keep doors open because of long-term lack of investment from local, state, and federal government.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that the economy can only function when a reliable child care system is available. It’s also made clear that so far, Oregon has failed at building an adequate system. A lack of coordinated investment has turned Oregon’s child care crisis into a state of true emergency for women and caregivers, especially Black and Latinx women.

• 50% of Oregon’s pre-COVID child care slots are gone. (source) Parents cannot find reliable child care options as they continue to work either from home or in their workplaces. Hardest hit are the 350,000 Oregonians (17% of the labor force) who do not work in occupations that allow them to work from home. (source)

• 40% of child care centers have closed since the start of the pandemic, most unlikely to ever reopen. Child care providers who are open are operating with reduced capacity and increased health and safety costs. This is making it harder for them to get by and to stay open. (source)

• Pre-COVID, Oregon parents paid double what the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends a family pay for child care (no more than 7% of your income), and single-parent families paid closer to 5x that amount. 

• Despite how prohibitively expensive it is for parents, child care workers (who are disproportionately women of color) are among the lowest-paid workers in Oregon. (source) 

• Child care workers are paid so poorly that 53% of them nationally rely on one or more public benefits, whether Food Stamps, Medicaid, EITC, or TANF. (source)

“Child care in Oregon has been systemically underfunded forever, at a great cost to parents, child care providers, our children, and the state,” says Joy Alise Davis, Executive Director of Imagine Black (fka PAALF Action Fund), another coalition partner of Child Care for Oregon. “And we know that this crisis most impacts Black and Latinx women and families, who are also being hardest hit by COVID-19. That’s why we’re calling on lawmakers to act and to act now.”

Davis shares that the group has an ambitious Legislative agenda for 2021 and will be prioritizing two bills (HB 2503 and SB 239) that will provide some immediate relief for families and providers struggling during COVID-19, while also setting up greater possibilities for an improved child care system. 

Relief for providers is welcome news for Angie Garcia, owner of Escuela Viva Community School.

"We've got to create a childcare system that can survive the next global crisis,” says Garcia. “Right now more than a 1/3 of childcare providers have closed their doors and will not be able to reopen without financial support. Those of us who remain open and operational are doing so at a tremendous financial loss. We must re-envision our childcare system, and we must do so urgently."

###

Child Care for Oregon is a coalition of nonprofit organizations, labor unions, community advocates, parents, caregivers and providers working to build a comprehensive child care system in Oregon. Our vision is to build a universal, publicly-funded child care system in Oregon that is equitable, affordable, culturally-relevant, inclusive, developmentally appropriate, safe and community-led. Learn more at childcarefororegon.com.