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Child care deserts continue to spread across Texas
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Child care deserts continue to spread across Texas

HOUSTON (KIAH) — Losing child care facilities creates a huge risk not only for the families who rely on them to care for their children while they go to work, but also for the caregivers and teachers who work there.

That loss means we are seeing the risk of more childcare dropouts due to the continued financial challenges the business faces due to rising wages and other costs. According to Children at Risk, a childcare desert is any area where there are three times as many children under the age of six as there are childcare seats in a given ZIP code. In Texas alone, Children at Risk recently shared data showing that 333 ZIP codes represent child care deserts.


Fortunately, for the first time in history, the organization says Texas serves more children in the Texas Rising Star program than other programs, which is progress in the right direction, but unfortunately, only 1 in 5 eligible working families in low income has access to child care.

In Houston, there are 41 child care deserts and 128 child care subsidy deserts for low-income working families in the Gulf Coast region.

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