Thank for all your hard work Jim, and all the best with the race!

The Parents Group

There is still work to be done to help the Children’s Village teachers – many of whom are also parents, who are transitioning to the CCCYO facility on Treasure Island.

Many of the teachers currently working at the Children’s Village will move to the Treasure Island facility starting September 1. These teachers are themselves making a very low income and up until now, have at least had the benefit of putting their own children into the childcare facility. Yet, in addition to the turmoil and change imposed on them, CCCYO is not offering this critical benefit to the low income teachers transitioning to Treasure Island: It’s taking it away.
CCCYO had an entire year to make accommodations for the children of teachers planning to transition to the Treasure Island facility – why is it now claiming there is no room for their children? This action is completely counter to CCCYO mission statements, goals and messages. I personally intend to hold them to it and urge you to do the same.

To put this in perspective, low income workers will now need to commute (without bus service for kids) from SF to Treasure Island. The fact that there is “no room” for their children is a greater hardship given the longer commute to work – this means not only will they have to pay for services/daycare/babysitting they will not see their children as much.

How can CCCYO so blatantly exploit its own low income workforce and still maintain its mission statement of helping low income families?

I am urging you – to personally step in and do what you can to make a difference for these families, whose lives have already been turned upside down – while the sale of this land has greatly benefited both CCCYO and the Catholic Church.
This is wrong. Can you help? Please contact your local representatives and CCCYO San Francisco to let them know you think this is wrong.

WHAT: Press Conference RE: Sale of Children’s Village to Speculators
Leaves Young Children Out in the Cold

WHEN: Monday, June 14, 2010, 8:30 a.m.

WHERE: Children’s Village Child Development Center (front sidewalk on 10th St.)
250 10th Street (between Howard/Folsom)
San Francisco, CA

WHO: Children’s Village parents, SEED (Supporting Early Experience and
Development – nonprofit group formed to save Children’s Village)

WHY: Children’s Village, an award-winning child development center serving children 3 months to 5 years, facing imminent closure – Catholic Charities discontinues program as San Francisco Archdiocese sells property to developers. Displaced families receive no support and children have no place to go. In a city where less than half the need for child-care services is met, Catholic Charities is closing its award-winning Child Development Center in SOMA so the Archdiocese can hand the facility over to speculators who are purchasing the property to develop the site.

Children’s Village provides vital day care, early childhood education and family support services to 110 children from 100 families, over half low-income and all reflecting the city’s cultural and socioeconomic diversity. Young children are the hardest to place in care facilities where in San Francisco only 49% of child care needs for children of all ages is met. Waiting lists of eighteen months to two years are the norm, putting extreme hardships on families struggling to stay and raise children in the City.

The San Francisco Archdiocese owns the St. Joseph’s campus where Children’s Village is located. Catholic Charities, the charitable arm of the Archdiocese, oversees Children’s Village as one of its programs. The Archdiocese is giving Catholic Charities one million dollars to close the program down and deliver the facility vacant. Catholic Charities has announced it will close the Center by end of August 2010 with reduced staffing through the summer. No transition plan or child care slots have been provided for the children Children’s Village serves. Catholic Charities plans to put toys and fixtures into storage while families are left without care. Although Catholic Charities recently announced it will open another facility near-by, it won’t be available for at least another year, with no guaranteed slots for displaced Children’s Village families even then. Therefore the Children’s Village families have been left to fend for themselves.

In addition, the property has just been sold to real estate broker Chris Harney of HC&M and Tom Murphy of SFRents who have also been unwilling to work out a transition plan for the parents, and declined to lease the property to them at market rates, even though the site’s future is uncertain. Adjacent St. Joseph’s Church, a historic vacant landmark, is in need of extensive seismic retrofitting.

In order to save Children’s Village, parents have formed SEED (Supporting Early Experience and Development), an independent non-profit organization, and created a sustainable plan to continue the Center at its current location, but that plan has been ignored by the current and future property owners.

“We prefer to stay here and have worked the financials out for that, or would alternatively rent the space in the interim given time to transition elsewhere, but they’re not interested in either,” said Megan Laurance, a mother of two children in the program. “At this point it looks like their plan is to kick these kids to the curb with no transition and no alternatives.”

“Children’s Village is a critical resource for San Francisco’s working families. A lease would allow the program to continue to operate, enabling families to work, and also gives time for a proper transition to an alternative location without impeding the investors’ plan for the site…we should be working towards that end.” explained Mardi Lucich, Citywide Child Care Administrator at the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families.

In fact, San Francisco has invested nearly $2 million dollars into Children’s Village’s state-of-the-art child care facility – a facility that supports a thriving community with a long waiting list of parents eager to enroll their young children. The City’s investment, in a time of economic hardship and huge budget deficits, will be squandered as developers take over the site and families are left to wonder if it’s finally time to leave the City and raise their children elsewhere.

Is this consistent with Catholic Charities’ mission of “supporting, stabilizing and strengthening families in our community”? Is it right for the Archdiocese to allow our city’s youngest children, many our most vulnerable, to be left with no one to care for them? Should the city’s investments be squandered and 110 needed child-care slots be lost to speculators?

The parents, children and supporters of Children’s Village say a resounding “NO”. We urge you to attend our press conference (details above) to learn more about Children’s Village and to hear from parents and civic leaders supporting our cause.

Questions can be directed to Dee Dee Workman, 415-533-8130, deedee@workmansf.com

Children’s Village Website: http://www.cccyo.org/childrensvillage/index.htm

Save Children’s Village Website: http://savechildrensvillage.com/

Please bake some cupcakes to bring to the event.

Hear the full story http://www.kalwnews.org

Read the full article

We’re close to finding a permanent solution. We need your help now.

What’s happening? Children’s Village is a program of Catholic Charities CYO (CCCYO) , and CCCYO has agreed to cease operations at our SOMA location by June, 2010 – a mere 8 months away . The Archdiocese intends to sell the land Children’s Village is operating on, and Catholic Charities CYO has agreed to move from the site.

The children have nowhere to go.

Why? CCCYO feels that the Children’s Village is not financially sustainable and is refocusing their efforts on part-day care integrated with supportive housing. For the working families of Children’s Village– part day care is the equivalent of no day care at all.

What’s the financial cost of losing the current location? Replicating a similar facility in the South of Market, (SOMA), San Francisco area would probably cost $15M or higher, (we’re researching this number and will provide more depth in future posts). Therefore, without a significant cash influx of millions of dollars, Children’s Village would be forced to either; cease operations, dramatically scale down, or move far out of the area it’s currently serving. A total of 107 children would be greatly impacted: Children of families in financial need (37), as well as children of families who need local childcare in SOMA (70) would be without an alternative. Wait lists for fulltime childcare, (for those who can afford it), are on average 1.5 years or longer in San Francisco.

All of the children would end up on waiting lists and would have a very difficult time finding a program of equal quality easily and quickly. Low income children would have a more difficult time finding quality care as many centers that provide the highest quality do not work with voucher programs. Families who pay privately, many of whom are spending one third or more of their monthly income, would find it very hard to afford the increased tuition for other programs of similar quality. The price of child care is a significant factor, along with the need for affordable housing that contributes to the large exodus of families from San Francisco.
Friends of Children’s Village are committed to helping low income families – this remains one of the biggest financial challenges, more so now than ever, with the decline in City subsidies.

What is Friends of Children’s Village doing to turn things around?
Rather than continue to be a financial burden on its operators, the Friends of Children’s Village have identified and implemented initial plans to reach financial viability: Earlier this year, we made solid first steps to meeting its goal of profitability by adding an entirely new classroom, The Honeybees,. This is a huge achievement for such a short timeframe and it gives us great confidence that the overall goal of reaching financial stability is achievable. We will outline more details on the plan to reach financial stability in future posts.

What’s Next?
Friends of Children’s Village need a little more time to reach the financial goals we’re already close to. The parents group is meeting with the Board of Directors for Catholic Charities CYO to ask the Archdiocese to extend our lease for an additional 2-3 years. With more time to implement our financial plan, we would become a real asset. We want to thank CCCYO for the support they and the Diocese have provided these past ten years and ask for their continued commitment by helping transition Children’s Village to a self-sustaining model.

All the parents are reaching out to the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities CYO, with a letter campaign, asking that they work with us to provide a way for Children’s Village to continue.

How can you help?
Please send your own letter – either to the Board of Directors of Catholic Charities CYO, or your Board of Supervisor representative, (see how to help tab above). Tell them we desperately need more childcare in San Francisco – we should NOT be getting rid of existing facilities. Please encourage your friends to do the same.

Please stay updated
New information will be posted to this site as it becomes available.

Show your support by following us on Twitter: FriendsofCV: http://twitter.com/FriendsofCV
Your help today could change the lives of some really wonderful children, for many years to come.

Thank you for your support!
Friends of Children’s Village

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