Los Angeles County public health officials on Wednesday released information on how essential workers and low-income families can apply for child-care vouchers during the pandemic.
The county Board of Supervisors last week allocated $15 million in federal stimulus funding toward child-care vouchers.
“This amount of money translates to three months of child care for 5,000 families,” county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a briefing Wednesday.
The public health department’s Office for the Advancement of Early Care and Education will distribute the funding and is contracting with the Child Care Alliance to distribute the vouchers, Ferrer said.
“To expedite the process, the funding will be infused into the existing voucher system,” she said.
The Child Care Alliance currently provides subsidized vouchers through programs including CalWORKs Stages 1, 2 and 3, Alternative Payment and the Emergency Child Care Bridge program.
Income eligibility for accessing the vouchers will be set by the state.
Families seeking child-care vouchers should call 888-922-4453.
The child-care funding was allocated in the county’s spending plan for the $1.22 billion it received from the CARES Act, which also put $301 million toward COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, $160 million toward small-business grants, $85 million to address food security and $100 million for rent relief.
“The CARES Act allocation from Congress provides us an opportunity to address the COVID-19 pandemic through an equity lens, ensuring we target and prioritize communities that have historically been underinvested and underserved,” Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement after the plan was approved last week. “COVID-19 has exacerbated so many longstanding disparities impacting our communities of color. Now is the time to tackle these issues head-on.”
