Kids enjoying playground fun and making new friends at Woodland Early Learning Center, in a provided photo.
Caleb Kemboi / Educational Opportunities for Children and Families
The families of 186 children enrolled in Head Start programs in Southwest Washington will lose their child care after Nov. 1.
“It’s a catastrophe for the families, as well as a lot of the fairly low-wage workers – the bus drivers and the cooks and the teaching assistants,” said Joel Ryan, executive director of Washington state’s Head Start program.
Head Start offers free childcare, early education, healthy meals and health screenings for the children of low-income families.
Saturday marks the expiration of federal funding at Head Start programs around the country. Nine programs in Washington state, from Tumwater to Wenatchee to Vancouver, will be unable to access federal dollars because of the government shutdown.
According to Ryan, 3,177 students from programs around Washington will be affected when grants expire at the end of October. Oregon Head Start programs are not facing immediate cuts.
In Southwest Washington, Head Start is provided by Vancouver-based nonprofit, Educational Opportunities for Children and Families. About $10 million, or 60% of its annual budget, comes from federal funding. Now, EOCF is paring down programs, cutting hours and staff, and ending some programs completely. An EOCF Head Start program in Yacolt that serves 18 children will be shutting down. Another program called Home Base that serves 96 kids and which offers support for pregnant women is also shuttering.
“In some of the more rural, outlying areas like Long Beach, Battle Ground, we’re the only game in town,” said Rekah Strong, CEO of the nonprofit. “They’re early learning deserts, they’re care deserts and they’re also social service deserts.”
Oregon’s Head Start programs will fare better because of state funding from the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care. The agency has allowed four programs with November grant deadlines to access additional funds to bridge the gap for the next 60 days, according to Nancy Perin, the executive director of programs in Oregon.
Nationally, Head Start serves 750,000 children. 65,000 are now at risk of losing access to programs, according to NPR.
The Head Start funding cliff is another strike against programs for low-income families that rely on government support, Ryan said, including the SNAP food assistance program, where funding is also set to expire on Saturday and Medicaid, the low-income health insurance program, where cuts will increase in 2026.
“Those cuts really impact families, especially those that are furthest away from opportunity or living in deep poverty,” Ryan said.
Of the approximately 3,000 children in Washington Head Start programs affected by the November funding deadline, about 15% are experiencing homelessness, according to Ryan. That translates to 450 children without stable living situations whose support system will be affected because of the federal shutdown.
The Southwest Washington programs help prevent costly child care expenses for low-income families, according to Strong.
“I don’t know what these families are going to do when they don’t have safe places to leave their kids so they can go back to work,” she said.
