Childcare providers ask state for a lifeline after the fires

Published Feb 5, 2025 9:00 AM

A blue and white swing set with green swings. Half the ground on the left side is covered in sand. The right side is covered in green fake grass. There are three swings on the swing set, but only the middle and right hand one are in tact. The swing on the left has just chains and no swing seat. The chains look charred. Behind the swing set, a children's red plastic truck is semi-melted. A tangle of other plastic colorful toys are behind it. Branches and ash is strewn across the ground.

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Alana Lewis's home is still standing in Altadena, but much of the neighborhood around her has been reduced to ash and chimneys.

With a backyard full of burned playground equipment, Lewis hasn't been able to return home or re-open her home childcare center where she had been caring for more than a dozen children.

So far, she said she's still been paid like normal because of an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom allowing state reimbursements for home childcare providers affected by the fires for up to 30 days. But that timeframe is almost up and she still has not been able to re-open her daycare.

"We need financial assistance over the mark," Lewis said while sitting in her home's backyard this week. "Not only have you lost your home, but you've lost your business."

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Affected childcare providers request more state support

Lewis is among a group of home childcare providers who are asking that the state keep paying them until they can re-open. The union that represents them — Child Care Providers United — sent that ask in a list of demands to the state including additional requests for funding for clean up and new supplies.

"Child care is an essential service for emergency response workers and necessary for a community’s economic recovery," that letter states.

The California Department of Social Services on Thursday released to LAist an account of the damage from the fires:

280 licensed child care facilities were non-operational as of last week, including 55 family child care homes.
Of those, 240 are short-term closures. The other 40 facilities are considered significantly damaged or destroyed.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the union said it had entered negotiations with the state about its emergency response, but had not yet reached an agreement in the evening.

"While the state said they had a 'shared interest' in extending payments beyond 30 days, there was no action toward an agreement," Blanca Gallegos said in a text message. "Providers need certainty so that they can recover and keep their doors open."

A spokesperson for Newsom reached via email did not say whether the executive order would be extended.

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Union contract negotiations ongoing

The fires and all the disruption that they brought came as Child Care Providers United is negotiating a new contract with the state. Its first contract in 2021 secured a long-desired pay increase for the workforce, a majority of whom are women of color. So did the next contract in 2023.

But wages for childcare workers are still chronically low. The union is currently negotiating with the state over overhauling the way child care subsidy rates are determined altogether.

Max Arias, executive director at SEIU Local 99 and chair of Child Care Providers United, said this moment of crisis is revealing.

"If providers had been [receiving] what it actually costs to care for a child for years now, they would have built up reserves that would allow them to be more resilient," he said.