YWCA steps in to save Elmsdale daycare center as NS grapples with a childcare shortage
When the owner of Swings Daycare recently announced she was retiring after 25 years, the Elmsdale, NS area was in danger of losing much-needed child care places.
But the YWCA took over ownership and began managing the daycare on Friday.
Miia Suokonautio, the executive director of YWCA Halifax, told CBC News that the goal is to provide uninterrupted care for families and uninterrupted work for the employees.
“That center is really important to those communities and those families and those workers who work there,” she said.
The transition can be welcomed by families served by the facility, especially as it comes at a time when many across the county are struggling to find childcare.
Halifax area is losing spaces, says NDP
In February, Nova Scotia announced $12 million in funding for the sector as part of the federal-provincial agreement on affordable childcare, a $600 million deal intended to create $10 a day of childcare in Nova Scotia by 2026.
But on Thursday, Nova Scotia’s NDP tweeted the results of a freedom of information request that showed the number of childcare places in centers and family homes across the county had increased by just 28 since the Houston government took office two years ago.
A press release from the Nova Scotia NDP caucus says so far the Halifax Regional Municipality has lost more childcare places this year than it created.
NDP leader Claudia Chender called the numbers “shameful”.
“Instead of taking responsibility, we are essentially hearing a numbers game from the minister,” she told reporters in Halifax.
The county has a “population that is exploding, we have a cost of living crisis and we have a housing crisis and in the midst of that, people can’t find childcare for their kids.”
She called the agreement with the federal government a “failure” so far.
“I suspect it’s about management as much as money,” she said. “I think this is being mishandled. I think it’s not getting the attention it deserves and not being treated with the urgency with which it should be treated.”
Nova Scotia’s Secretary of Education, Becky Druhan, said the province is feeling pressure from people in the childcare industry retiring.
But she said the government is investing in childcare and money is available for the government to take over private daycares.
“So we’re leveraging that funding and we’re leveraging the support of partners in the system, both private operators and not-for-profit providers to maintain a lot of spaces,” she said.
Demand ‘at a record high’
For Suokonautio, keeping daycare centers like Swings open is a gender equality issue because it helps keep women in work.
But demand is “unprecedentedly high and our waiting lists are very long,” she said because of the affordable childcare deal.
“What it tells us is that people who were previously discounted are now able to access [child care].”
The YWCA is working with the county to increase the number of childcare providers and ensure businesses like Swings don’t disappear.
“If we want rural families to stay in rural communities or outside the central core, we need to make sure families have access to schools and childcare,” Suokonautio said.
‘It’s extremely stressful’
For parents like Claire Horn, finding a shelter for her 14-month-old is an immediate need. She and her partner have been on a waiting list since she became pregnant.
Horn, a health law researcher at Dalhousie University, said almost all of her salary goes to paying babysitters.
“It’s extremely stressful. It’s a constant rearrangement of schedules and uncertainty about how long a given childcare arrangement will last,” she told CBC News.
While she and her partner are privileged to have flexible jobs, she said, not every parent is equally fortunate.
“I know people who have had to give up paid work to meet their childcare needs. People who try to combine working from home with caring for their children,” she said.
“I also know people who are pregnant and panic about what they’re going to do.”
