NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Last summer, Derrika Richard felt stuck. She didn’t have enough money to afford child care for her three youngest children, ages 1, 2 and 3. Yet the demands of caring for them on a daily basis made it impossible for Richard, a hairstylist, to work. One child care assistance program rejected her because she wasn’t working enough. It felt like an unsolvable quandary: Without care, she couldn’t work. And without work, she couldn’t afford care. But Richard’s life changed in the fall, when, thanks to a new city-funded program for low-income families called City Seats, she enrolled the three children at Clara’s Little Lambs, a child care center in the Westbank neighborhood of New Orleans. For the first time, she’s earning enough to pay her bills and afford online classes. “It actually paved the way for me to go to school,” Richard said one morning this spring, after walking the three children to their classrooms. City Seats, she said, “changed my life.” |
Hurricanes lose defenseman Brett Pesce to lowerHelicopter midPregnant Emily Miller goes braless and shows off her bump under daring tieHurricanes lose defenseman Brett Pesce to lowerHe's a former Disney Channel actor who starred in famous films before serving four years in prisonMoment Susanna Reid apologises as Labour MP Yvette Cooper swears on Good Morning BritainTaylor Swift pops a pill to forget the pain she's suffered at the hands of badMeg Bennett dead at 75 following cancer battle: EmmyWhy Meghan's podcast has hit a snag before it even begins: Duchess's muchGlobal plastic treaty: Negotiations hit critical stage in Canada