NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she wasn’t working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she couldn’t work. And without work, she couldn’t afford care. But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats, she enrolled the three children at Clara’s Little Lambs, a child care center in the Westbank neighborhood of New Orleans. For the first time, she’s earning enough to pay her bills and afford online classes. “It actually paved the way for me to go to school,” Richard said one morning this spring, after walking the three children to their classrooms. City Seats, she said, “changed my life.” |
Israel Gaza: Netanyahu vows to press ahead with Rafah offensiveWest Coast Regional Council "closely monitoring" Taylorville Resource ParkIsrael Gaza: Netanyahu vows to press ahead with Rafah offensiveACT leader David Seymour says simpler tax system would encourage a culture of successParliament set to resume for 2024The royals have historically been tightFormer National MP Alfred Ngaro interviewed by police after family fight next to mum’s coffinEDITORIAL: Plan needed so no quake victims will ever be left behind againSinead O'Connor died of natural causes, London coroner says'Time to go home' French farmers told following two weeks of protest