Illinois Residents, child care providers need your help. So do the 90,000 children enrolled in the child care assistance program. Many parents work hard to provide for their families. However, sometimes hard work does not pay all the bills at the end of the day. That is why CCRS is important to many low-income families. But as you know, the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) is on the brink of running out of money because the state legislature passed a budget that underfunded the program by $295 million. The program is expected to run out of money by late January or early February 2015. Thats why Im urgently counting on you to work to pass an emergency supplemental funding bill to protect 85,000 low-income families who rely on child care for over 150,000 children. Children, low-income parents, and child care providers throughout Illinois are all counting on you to protect this essential program. Why should low-income children and families have to be the ones to suffer simply because lawmakers didn’t do their job and pass a complete budget? Its simply not right. We need you to do the right thing and immediately pass an emergency funding bill of $295 million to protect our essential child care program that gives our children a strong start, prepares them for school, and allows working parents the ability to go work or back to school to better their lives. For more information we urge you and your staff to watch this WTTW Channel 11 Chicago Tonight news story about the child care funding crisis -- https://youtube/watch?v=DgztcVqgWEk&list=UUsbpFEenAVbRGiJIH14rSPQ We need you to take action now and get word to our new governor that this has to be the first thing he deals with in his new office. If this funding stops, then we are talking about parents having to make the decision to stop working, ultimately going onto another kind of state assistance to be able to put food on the table/clothes on their kids backs/roof over the head, or drop out of school and forego bettering themselves to be able to provide for their children. PLEASE get involved.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:41:11 +0000