Irvine residents with young children may soon be able to participate in a city-sponsored child care grant program after city council members told staff to study the topic and return with a plan.
Council members unanimously supported the idea during their meeting on Sept. 9 and voted to direct staff to study the proposal for families with children ages 0 to 4 that live or work in Irvine.
Councilmembers William Go and Melinda Liu brought the item forward for discussion last week.
“The city of Irvine offers strong scholarship programs to the Irvine Children’s Fund to support school-aged children, but currently, children ages 0 to 4 are left out,” Go said during the meeting.
“Our office identified this gap in support for families and partnered with Councilmember Liu’s office to bring this item forward. This effort directly reflects Irvine’s commitment to being the best city to raise a family through the Irvine Cares initiative, ensuring that every stage of life is supported.”
Liu said the program would create much-needed support for the “missing middle” of families whose income is too high to qualify for other local subsidies, but still struggle to afford child care for their infants and toddlers.
“With my own experience as a mother, it was extremely expensive to raise three kids in Irvine, especially during the time when they were 0 to 4,” Liu said. “Preschool was expensive and there wasn’t enough of them, let alone any early infant care.”
For Orange County, the median income for a family of four is $136,600, according to the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development income limit numbers.
To be considered low-income, a family of four must have a combined annual income under $135,350.
Liu also said that all Irvine schools offer on-site child care before and after school but that doesn’t help families with children who are too young for school.
Councilmember James Mai told staff to thoroughly explore other programs offered across the country and state before Irvine starts handing out any grants.
“There’s not enough light on this issue, especially resources for young parents,” he said. “Some of it has been cut, some of it has been removed.”
Councilmember Betty Martinez Franco said her daughter has a young child and struggles to pay for day care.
“They want to have more children, and now they’re thinking about not even having more children because of the cost of day care,” she said during the meeting. “Those people in the middle class are falling behind, and I want my kids to be able to stay here in Irvine.”
Direction to city staff was to study a potential program in Irvine, including examining income eligibility standards, examining funding sources, coordinating with existing providers and learning from other successful models.
The question of funding sources is unclear at this time.
“If this is to be meaningful, it has to have robust funding, and I would imagine it would have to come from a new source,” Mayor Larry Agran said at the meeting. “I think that bullet will have to be bitten when this comes back to us.”
Heather Dion, director of health and wellness for the city, said the health and wellness advisory committee recently formed five subcommittees, one of which is dedicated for child care resources and programming
“We have a number of subject matter expertise, pediatricians, representatives from both Irvine school district and Tustin school district on those subcommittees,” she told councilmembers last week. “I think we have a lot of subject matter expertise along with our staff, and I think we can come back with a very well-thought-out proposal.”
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.