The city’s pilot program called Promise NYC, which covers up to $700 per week in child care for undocumented children of low-income parents during the second half of 2023, will continue and be expanded in the city’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
A boy in front of an emergency shelter for asylum seekers in Manhattan last fall.
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The city’s pilot program called Promise NYC, which covers up to $700 per week in child care for undocumented children of low-income parents, will continue and be expanded in the city’s budget for the next fiscal year.
Although the continuation will not be accompanied by the $20 million dollars What immigrant advocates and the four CBOs that launched the program have requested, the $16 million allocated in the city’s recently announced $107 billion spending package is close enough to so they can celebrate.
“While $16 million won’t be enough to meet the demand that providers know is out there, this investment will ensure that our immigrant families are not left broke,” said Immigration Committee Chair and Brooklyn Councilmember Shahana Hanif.
The pilot program, announced by Mayor Eric Adams late last year with seed funding of $10 million, was intended to help low-income families whose immigration status makes them ineligible for other federally funded child care subsidies. .
“This is a great victory, and it is a great victory for the children, and it reminds us that regardless of the papers, children deserve to have the right to child care,” said Yesenia Mata, executive director of La Colmena, a nonprofit organization for-profit contracted to administer the program in Staten Island.
during a audience of the city Council on June 13, officials with the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), which oversees the child care program, did not commit to renewing the program for the next fiscal year, leaving participants fearful that the subsidy could end abruptly.
“I was dismayed when the administration was unable to commit to Promise NYC funding for next year,” Hanif said Thursday. “But with today’s budget agreement, New York City is ensuring that our undocumented neighbors continue to have access to high-quality child care.”
As of early June, 664 children were enrolled in Promise NYC — up from 320 children in April — surpassing the initial goal of 600 when the program launched late last year, said Elizabeth Wolkomir, deputy commissioner for child and family welfare at the ACS, during the hearing before the Council. The vast majority of enrolled children, 75 percent, were under 4 years of age.
The program has proven to be life-changing for long-term immigrant families living in New York, as well as newly arrived asylum seekers, more than 50,000 of whom remain in the care of the city, officials said. surpassing the number of homeless people. Over the past year, more than 70 percent of immigrants in the city’s shelters were families with children, according to recent mayoral data published by Gothamist.
Promise NYC has been especially transformative for single mothers and fathers who have found work as a result of the program, giving them more freedom to study or undertake. Several of those who spoke to City Limits this spring, some of whom were living in the city’s shelter system at the time, said that having access to childcare helped their children receive better nutrition, as well as education and stimulation. early.
Demand for the program has been high since it was announced in December 2022, and by March, some of the administering organizations had created waiting lists with hundreds of people.
It’s unclear if families currently participating will have to reapply for the program, but the pilot program expired on June 31. When asked about the extension, ACS said it could not yet provide details.
“This is an essential program, and I am deeply grateful to the president of the Council [Adrienne] Adams for ensuring it is not cut from this year’s budget and for keeping our promise to immigrant neighbors that they will not be left behind in our state’s historic expansion of early childhood care,” said Hanif.
2023-07-06 18:45:54
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