San Francisco To Invest $50.7M Over Two Years In Child Care, Family Services

Press release from the San Francisco Office of the Mayor:

San Francisco, CA — Today, Mayor London N. Breed announced a planned $50.7 million in her upcoming two year budget to fund four recommendations from her Children and Family Recovery Plan, announced in February 2022. The funding will go towards childcare vouchers for low-income families and transition-aged young adults with children; increased staffing, support, and training for parents at Family Resource Centers; and the creation of an improved system to help families identify and sign up for services.

“When we announced our Children and Family Recovery Plan, it was built on the premise that we need to fundamentally change how we support families in this City,” said Mayor Breed. “That requires immediate investments and long-term commitments to not only expand services, but make sure the programs we have are accessible for our families. Accessing quality childcare and family support is a basic building block of our recovery and improving the lives for residents in our city.”

Mayor Breed’s proposed budget seeks to allocate funding to the following four new initiatives:

In February, Mayor Breed announced her Children and Family Recovery Plan, a set of Citywide recommendations to be implemented over the next three-to-five years to help children and families recover from the impacts of the pandemic. The Children and Family Recovery Plan is the result of significant community engagement with thousands of community members shared their thoughts through surveys, interviews, and work groups.

“Investing in our kids and families is by far the most important priority in our pandemic recovery. We need to support and retain families here in San Francisco by addressing the devastating impacts that exacerbated existing inequities. This is our opportunity to be bold in our measures to become a child-friendly city and attract families back. We are looking forward to supporting our hard-working early care educators, the providers working to help our families navigate basic resources, and pushing new, innovative initiatives that truly center the holistic needs of children,” said Supervisor Myrna Melgar.

“Extending high-quality early care and education opportunities for parents who are transition-aged young adults (TAYA) will provide them with a greater sense of economic stability,” said Ingrid Mezquita, Director of the Office of Early Care and Education. “TAYA parents face economic hardship because of the high cost of early care. This investment creates the opportunity for economic advancement for multiple generations that has positive and lasting change. Providing TAYA parents access to early care builds their resilience as young adults and parents, and opens doors for themselves and their children, as they achieve their full potential.”

“By investing in full-time positions and expanding the capacity of Family Resource Centers to strengthen the long-term health of our communities and families, The Mayor has shown that a city cannot thrive unless its families and children thrive,” said Theresa Zighera, Interim Executive Director of First 5 San Francisco. “Located throughout the City, Family Resource Centers are often the partner that helps bolster and link families. They were around long before the pandemic, they have seen families through the pandemic, and they will be there for the City’s families long after, as their children grow and develop, needs change, and the City rebounds.”

“We continued to hear from families that it is difficult to find out about existing services, and how to sign up for them,” said Dr. Maria Su, Executive Director of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. “Helping families more easily learn about and access programs is one of our top priorities. Developing a Service Inventory and bolstering training for Citywide navigators will allow us to achieve that goal.”

These budget proposals build on Mayor Breed’s commitment to improving support for children and families in San Francisco. Most recently, Mayor Breed announced the $60 million Workforce Compensation Initiative to support City-funded early educators who take care of San Francisco’s youth. Under that initiative, early educators in City-funded programs will receive raises to their salaries of anywhere from $8,000 to $30,000. That funding is already allocated from the FY 21-22 budget, with early educators set to begin seeing salary increases by early July 2022.

This press release was produced by the San Francisco Office of the Mayor. The views expressed here are the author’s own.