Thomas Breen photo
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro greets early ed teacher Haley Gregory on Friday.
The following speech was given by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democratic member on the House Appropriations Committee and a longtime advocate for an expanded federal child tax credit and increased government investments in childcare, at a press conference Friday celebrating the reopening of the eighth and final classroom at the Hope Child Development Center on Olive Street.
DeLauro (right) prepares to cut ribbon for reopened classroom with Hope Child Development Center founder Georgia Goldburn.
Georgia Goldburn is an inspiration to all of us who work on children’s issues. She has made Hope for New Haven into an indispensable resource for our community. In addition to being a powerful advocate for child care providers, she has also stood up for the children and families she serves. She has hosted community events, testified at hearings, and consistently gone above and beyond to build a strong network of child care advocates in the Third District.
I’d also like to recognize the other leaders here today: Governor Ned Lamont, Commissioner Beth Bye, and Mayor Justin Elicker.
We are all here to celebrate the opening of the final classroom at Hope for New Haven, after four years of effort.
This is a place of learning, and I think we can all learn something from the story of Hope for New Haven. It is a story of resilience and dedication, and it shows us what happens when we invest in childcare and early childhood education.
In March of 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic was spreading, this center’s enrollment fell from 73 to only 19 children. Despite this devastating blow, Georgia knew that someone still needed to care for the children of essential workers who could not stay home. Georgia kept the doors open, juggling staff and budget shortages alike.
The child care industry was in crisis before we had a global pandemic. Afterwards, it was a state of catastrophe for parents, families, and providers across the country.
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented measures, so I led Congress in passing both the $1.5 trillion American Rescue Plan, which included $24 billion in support for child care providers, and the Child Care Is Essential Act, which created an additional $50 billion child care stabilization fund. $400,000 of that aid ended up right here, making sure that parents did not have to see their tuition rise any further or see these doors close to their children.
Our state government, especially Commissioner Bye, was a vital partner as well, investing in infant and toddler expansion grants to provide more capacity here at Hope. Thanks to this strong support and the efforts of Georgia and her team, the children here were able to keep learning, growing, and thriving throughout one of the most challenging times in our nation’s history.
It might be tempting to think of today as a return to normal. But I believe we must make a new normal. Our country is confronting crises on multiple fronts, at home and abroad. Hardworking Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Families are stretched thin, with some parents working multiple jobs just to afford safe and high-quality child care. People need quality, affordable child care to ensure they can go to work. During the Covid pandemic, women did not choose to leave the workforce — they were forced out because they did not have child care.
The worst days of the Covid pandemic might be behind us, but we still need to be doing more to invest in our children and child care workforce.
As many of you know, I have fought to create, and then to expand and renew a Child Tax Credit for nearly my entire career in Congress.
We won that battle in the American Rescue Plan, and it produced incredible results. It helped over 61 million children — poor, working, and middle-class alike — and lifted nearly 4 million out of poverty in 2021 alone. Child poverty was cut in half.
But Congress failed to renew this credit, and so 5.2 million children and their families have been set back into preventable poverty — a nearly 140 percent increase.
We saw what happened when Congress, and our state and local governments, all came together to support high quality, affordable child care. We see the results here today. We have no excuse for not making those investments going forward.
If there is one cause worthy of our investment, it will always be America’s children. Child care is critical infrastructure. When it is accessible and affordable — parents and children thrive, and our country is stronger. It is paramount that we continue our investments to help parents, improve the social and emotional learning of our children, and help providers like Georgia deliver the highest level of care.
I want Hope for New Haven to represent a new normal, where supporting child care is a top priority, where government investment is seen for the incredible success that it produced, and where our future policies are guided by what we see here today.
