Report: Michigan child care program shuts down after losing federal money

Focus: HOPE, a community organization in Detroit that provides child care services to low-income families, will shut down its Head Start program after losing its federal grant money.

According to the Detroit Free Press, nearly 450 low-income children will be without child care and early education after Focus: HOPE closed its early Head Start sites. The Head Start locations relied on federal funding, which was denied without explanation on Aug. 7. Over 100 Head Start staff members were also laid off because of the cuts.

Focus: Hope’s early learning programs for four-year-olds, and support programs for early parenting, pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding will all be impacted by the loss of funding. Children in the programs get early exposure to letters and numbers, socializing and language skills.

“They did exactly what they said they were not going to do,” Waymond Hayes, director of early learning at Focus: HOPE, told the Free Press. “They cut money affecting our cities and they cut slots, which is affecting our kids.”

Focus: HOPE recently applied for an additional 100 slots and an increase from $6 million to $14 million in total funding to grow the program to accommodate kids on the program’s wait list.

“We were hoping this would be our opportunity to grow our program a little bit and have even more students participate in a Head Start program,” said Focus: HOPE CEO Portia Roberson. “This obviously is not that and it’s going to be a significant hit to our overall Focus: HOPE budget.”

Roberson also said that no other organizations in close proximity to Focus: HOPE were competing for the grant they applied for.

“We really don’t know why, because, to be honest, while it was a competitive grant process, it was not competitive in the sense that anyone else was applying to service the kids in the four ZIP codes we were currently servicing,” Roberson told Chalkbeat Detroit. “So, essentially, by not funding us, it wasn’t as if they said, ‘Oh, we think that the application from some other organization was a better application, and we’re sending the kids there.’ They just said we’re not going to service you in these ZIP codes.”

The federal Head Start program, which serves more than 1 million children annually, has been in limbo since President Donald Trump took office in January. The administration has expressed interest in eliminating the program altogether. Several regional Head Start offices were closed in April, and layoffs to the Department of Health and Humans Services have negatively impacted the program.