FAMILIES
Brisport’s Goes on Tour to Promote Child Care Plan
Out gay state lawmaker prepares to introduce universal child care bill next year
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
Out gay State Senator Jabari Brisport
is on the move, spending nine weeks
talking with families and caregivers
as he prepares to introduce a Universal
Child Care bill in Albany’s upper chamber
next year.
Brisport, who represents parts of Brooklyn
including Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and Gowanus and chairs the senate’s Children
and Families committee, announced in August
that he would be introducing legislation to provide
child care for all New Yorkers.
“It remains true today that women bear the
brunt of child care responsibilities,” Brisport
said in a speech announcing the legislation.
“It remains true today that pressuring half the
workforce into staying home is oppressive and
deeply ineffi cient. And it remains true today
that widespread access to employment is dependent
on widespread access to child care.”
Before the legislative session begins in January,
Brisport is traveling around the state to get
feedback from those most affected by, and most
knowledgeable about, access to quality child
care and the lack thereof.
A report released earlier this year by the
state’s Child Care Availability Task Force found
that the average yearly cost of infant care in
a child care center was more than $15,000. A
smaller, family-based center was slightly less
costly, at about $10,000 per year.
The listening tour, happening both in-person
and in evening Zoom sessions, kicked off in
Brooklyn last week as Brisport visited the Helen
Owen Carey Child Development Center, an
early-learning center in Park Slope run by the
University Settlement House, and Greenpoint
Garden Playhouse, a family child care center in
Greenpoint.
Greenpoint Garden Playhouse offers afterschool
pickup for some young school-aged children
and full-day care for two-year-olds. The
center also provides a small number of free 3-K
seats in affi liation with the Department of Education’s
Universal 3-K program.
Kasia Kaim-Goncalves, GGP’s founder and
director, said the center received 142 applications
for fi ve spots in the 3-K program. At least
half of those applications were for extended-day
or extended-year, she said, federally subsidized
programs that provide care after school hours
and on days DOE programs are closed.
“Defi nitely, it speaks to the need of expanding
this program to more families,” Kaim-Goncalves
said, during the virtual portion of the
tour. “Because not everybody got a seat. And in
this ZIP code where I’m in, 11222, we were the
State Senator Jabari Brisport visited local child care centers as he prepares to introduce legislation that would bring Universal Child Care to
New York.
only provider of 3-K. Not a single public school
offers it, not any other day care center. We are
actually like a child care desert.”
3-K programs in the neighborhood are expensive,
she said, and while some may say it’s
the cost of living in New York City, families who
have called the neighborhood home for years
found costs rising around them.
“I’ve been in this neighborhood for a long
time,” Kaim-Goncalves said. “That’s why I’m
here. I couldn’t choose to be here now. I couldn’t
choose not to be here at the moment. And
there’s many families like mine who sort of
found themselves in the middle of this situation
where everything is so expensive, and one
of the things that’s expensive is child care.”
The Task Force report said the state should
work toward ensuring that no family pays more
than 10 percent of their annual income on child
care, and that low-income families pay not more
than seven percent.
In 2019, Greenpoint and Williamsburg
had an annual median income of more than
$99,000, according to the Furman Center,
higher than the citywide AMI of about $70,000.
Under federal guidelines, 20 percent of the
population was living below the poverty line
— $26,500 for a family of four. According to
STATE SENATOR JABARI BRISPORT
city data, more than 40 percent of households
were spending 35 percent or more of their annual
income on rent.
Nora Moran, director of policy and advocacy
at United Neighborhood Houses, said “centerbased”
care centers, like the Helen Owen Carey
center, are seeing similar trends.
“When there are those subsidized seats open
up, there is a lot of demand, a lot of family interest,”
she said. “They do fi ll up quickly.”
There were only enough seats in center-based
care facilities for 7 percent of babies born in
2015-2016 in Park Slope, Red Hook, and Carroll
Gardens, according to a 2019 report from
the city comptroller’s offi ce.
While Park Slope might be seen as a wealthier
neighborhood, Moran said, there are many
families with lower incomes who are priced out
of expensive child care options in the area.
Some parents and caregivers, she said, also
prefer to have child care close to their workplace,
rather than closer to home, something
organizers and lawmakers should keep in mind
as they work to improve access.
Lack of affordable, quality child care can
keep caregivers out of the workforce. At least
➤ CHILD CARE, continued on p.11
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