Spokane Alliance has received preliminary support for their ongoing campaign to fund child care services in the City of Spokane and Spokane County. The work to meet their full funding goals continue.  

On April 28th, 255 members of the Spokane Alliance and 25 kids from 17 member institutions were successful in getting commitments from the City of Spokane and City of Spokane Valley to allocate a total of $4 M towards child care stabilization of American Rescue Act Plan funds! 

The Spokane Alliance has been working for 2 years to build power around Childcare, talking to over 150 of their members about the crisis. The Alliance's goal is for $10 M of ARPA funding allocated towards stabilizing childcare, specifically:

1. Subsidies for middle-class, working families

2. Support for the workforce

3. Behavioural Health support for kids/staff 

The Action on April 28th included elected officials from both the City of Spokane and the City of Spokane Valley. The City of Spokane council member committed to raising the commitments they had previously made to solving the child care crisis in Spokane. The two cities have together allocated $4 M in ARPA funding. 

The missing piece of the puzzle in this campaign is the the Spokane Board of County Commissioners, who have yet to commit any funding to the ongoing child care crisis. Future action from the Spokane Alliance will be focused on the County Government. If you would like to learn more about this issue, check out the local press coverage here. 

If you live in Spokane and would like to take action around this issue, check out the Spokane Alliance website for more information.