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.”
Adams, Reyna, Turner, Ream are US concerns ahead of Copa America
Unrepentant Jan. 6 rioter Derrick Evans goes up against GOP Rep. Carol Miller in West Virginia
Jennifer Lopez says she's 'the thinnest I've ever been' after filming Kiss of the Spider Woman
Padma Lakshmi, Halsey, Saweetie and Lucy Liu dazzle with high
Minnesota Uber and Lyft driver pay package beats deadline to win approval in Legislature
Migrants storm onto California beach after landing in boat as stunned crowds look on
Scarred by war, Nigeria’s wounded soldiers fought to recover at Prince Harry's Invictus Games
Nineties dance music icon, 56, looks like she hasn't aged a day
Dodgers acquire pitcher Yohan Ramírez from Mets for cash
Not so Cool Britannia! Noel Gallagher gives damning verdict on Keir Starmer
Antiques Roadshow guest is left stunned at his 'over the top' belt buckle's shocking real price