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.”
Judge blocks Biden administration from enforcing new gun sales background check rule in Texas
Seattle hospital won't turn over gender
Facing pressure from rights groups, World Bank suspends funding for Tanzania tourism project
Israeli military intelligence chief resigns over failure to prevent Hamas attack
Justin Timberlake set to bring his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour to Australia in 2025
Takeaways from the opening statements in Trump's hush money trial
Kepler has 3 RBIs in return from injured list; Twins beat White Sox 7
Kevin Pillar gets 1,000th career hit in Angels' win at Texas
UK home secretary to visit Italy to discuss stopping migrants arriving on boats
Storms damage homes in Oklahoma and Kansas. But in Houston, most power is restored
MLB players' union asks court to confirm arbitration decision against Bad Bunny firm