On May 24, community organizations from Pilsen held a press conference to oppose Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) cuts proposed by the state of Illinois. The Academy of Parents in Leadership, Chicago Commons (Guadalupano Family Center), Gads Hill Center, El Hogar del Niño, Pilsen Neighbors Community Council, El Valor and community residents convened at Plaza Tenochtitlan in Pilsen. Governor Quinn’s budget proposes devastating programmatic cuts to the IDHS Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Included in the cuts are:

• Dramatic increases in the child care co-payment for all families, including a 350 percent increase for the lowest income families ($36 million);
• Lowering the income guideline to enter the CCAP from 185 percent of FPL ($9 million)
• A reduction to the rate paid to child care providers by eliminating parity-increases for center-based providers ($28.5 million);

Families will also see their co-payments increase by an average of 52 percent and these increases would hit families with the lowest income the hardest. According to Rebecca Estrada, executive director of El Hogar del Niño, “For children whose families are low-income, child care programs are often the only early childhood education services they receive… the proposed cuts will make it harder for our community and the entire state to get affordable child care.” Susana Olmos, parent leader at El Hogar del Niño says, “Cuts mean I will lose the stable child care arrangements needed so that I can keep working, and my children will lose their quality early childhood education programs.”