A Black Lives Matter protest more accessible to those in the disabled community is being organized for next Friday in Portsmouth.
A 2018 Center for American Progress analysis found that more than half of Americans live in a childcare desert. And now add a pandemic that has stretched almost two years to the scarcity of spaces and ever-rising cost, and the stress for both child care providers and those looking for a facility has increased exponentially.
As a single mother of two boys, one 9 and one 4, Christina Darling was more than happy to work to keep a roof over their heads, but she found herself caught in a vicious circle.
“You need to work to pay the bills, but in order to work you need child care, but in order to get child care you need money and in order to get money you need to work,” she said.
Staff shortages are hamstringing child care businesses just as their services are in high demand as the pandemic wanes, the tourist season takes off, bosses pressure workers to return to the office and the state cuts supplemental federal benefits to force the unemployed back to work.
