Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Two Cape Cods: Hidden Poverty on the Cape and Islands - Part 5

The lack of affordable, licensed childcare is a major dilemma for parents and businesses on the Cape and Islands. In many cases, parents are forced to decide between paying more than $300 a week for care, using unlicensed care, or simply staying home and losing income they may have received from a job.

When she was younger, 38-year-old Monica Keith Hammity admits she had a stereotype in her mind about who the people that ended up on public assistance.

Monica Keith Hammity: "A lot of times you think of it as someone who maybe has a problem with alcohol or drugs. And I would read articles in the Globe about generations of people on welfare, and you don't think of it as your neighbor who is out working, who is still struggling."

Hammiity lives with her four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter in her mom's retirement home in Eastham. Her husband left the household last year, and things have been tough since then.

Monica Keith Hammity: "I definitely have bills piling up. I just sort of stretch that as long as I can. I pay one and then see how long I can get away with letting another one go, and that is basically how I do it right now."

With prices high and seasonal work wages low, Hammity is in the same situation as thousands of other Cape Codders. She's working poor. She cannot find a full-time job that will pay her more than it would cost to put her children in childcare.

Monica Keith Hammity: "I am working part time at Willy's Gym, and they allow me to take the children with me. There is only basically ten hours per week there, and I run a playgroup in Eastham, where I am able to take my children with me as well. If I couldn't take them with me, I couldn't afford to take the job. I would be paying more in chidcare than I would be making."

Childcare advocates say the system is in crises. The result is parents are forced to give up jobs or leave their children with unlicensed providers. As the director of Human Needs at the Lower Cape Outreach Council, Robin Carroll says she is constantly hearing stories about parents deciding between working and putting their children in licensed childcare.

Robin Carroll: "Say you have two children, and you have daycare costs, and you have a mortgage or you have a rent, it is hard to find a job that is going to sustain that. And that's a simple reality. It's black and white."

In Hammity's case, she needs to work, so she has been on a wait list for state childcare vouchers since last fall. She may have quite a wait. The wait list can extend two or three years -- a fact Kate McCaully, the executive director of the Cape Cod Children's Place in Eastham, says can be very discouraging for parents.

Kate McCaully: "The wait list is so long that when a family calls up and asks to be put on the wait list and the person they are speaking to is saying the list is two or three years long, they don't bother to put their names down. And the only way the state is looking at the number of children that are in need of child care are the number of children who are on the wait list, so we encourage everybody to put their name down. Whether it is a two year wait or not."

One reason the wait is so long is because there are so few licensed childcare centers. Elizabeth Aldred, the outreach coordinator at the Children's Place, says that between the year 2000 and the spring of 2005, the lower and outer Cape region lost more than fifty percent of its licensed childcare centers.

Elizabeth Aldred: "If families cannot afford to pay, then they are either not enrolling their children or they are getting in arrears on their bill. If you are a licensed family child care provider doing this in your home, you certainly don't have any cushion to fall back on. If a familiy doesn't pay you, then you cannot pay to put food on your own table."

Licensed facilities also face a significant problem finding staff, McCaully says, because the pay is so low.

Kate McCaully: "The educational guidelines for quality care are increasing... We are looking towards childcare providers to have associate degrees and childcare degrees, making $8 or $9 an hour... that's an impossible mission."

The fact that care givers are closing is a poverty issue, Aldred says, and it trickles down to affect the families that can afford to pay in full and on-time because the centers are gone. The lack of affordable daycare also is a major obstacle for employers.

The Outer Cape has never seen anything like the SeaBabies childcare program at the Council on Aging Center in Wellfleet.

SeaBabies is a new program, launched in January as a partnership between Seaman's Bank in Provincetown, the Cape Cod Children's Place and the Wellfleet Council on Aging. Seaman's Bank has agreed to pay twenty-five thousand dollars a year for the next three years to help subsidize care for its employees. It is one of the first examples the Cape has seen of a private business helping support a community childcare program . Christine Johnson Staub is the chairwoman of the Barnstable County Council for Children Youth and Families.

Christine Johnson Staub: "Seaman's Bank recognized they had staff that needed childcare. So they helped by investing in a program. And by investing in a program they've made that program more stable so it can be available for other families in the area."

While the SeaBabies program has generated a lot of hope for Cape and Islands childcare advocates, this year also brings a lot of uncertainty. In July, changes are anticipated in the way the state administers subsidies. The fear is that parents will have to make much less money -- up to fifty percent of the state median income -- to receive a voucher.

Please note: This story was first aired last spring. The changes to the state child care subsidy formula did take place this past July. However, families already in the program are still eligible under the old formula.