'We just don't have any other option'

Second in a yearlong series on the struggles of Tarrant County's working poor.

Terri Rushing dreads the day she gets her next raise.

The single mother of three children, an 11-year-old and 10-year-old twins, Rushing receives child-care assistance from Tarrant County Child Care Management Services, a Texas Workforce Commission program that helps working parents become self-sufficient.

Her day-care expenses are about $1,170 a month during the summer. She pays $235.

A raise of more than $500 annually would push Rushing over the income cap, ending her child-care subsidies.

Even with assistance, Rushing, 49, is barely making it with an annual income of $27,600. Just last month she had only $96 to last for two weeks after paying rent, day care, $30 for gasoline and $50 worth for groceries.

Rushing's struggle is familiar in a country where the proportion of children living with single mothers has increased steadily from 8 percent in 1960 to 23 percent in 2006, according to the report The Feminization of Poverty by the YWCA and the J. McDonald Williams Institute. These families are more likely to be poor. In 2005, 36.2 percent of single mothers lived in poverty compared with 17.6 percent for single fathers and 6.5 percent for married couples with children, according to the report.

To keep costs down, Rushing hurries from her job as a trainer at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Conference Center about 6:15 p.m. each weekday to pick up her children. She can't be late because at 6:30, the day care will start charging her $1 a minute.

"I work until the last second," she said. "Having to pick them up makes me seem unavailable for work and not flexible."

During the summer, the Rushing children have to stay at the center from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., and the cost of day care goes up $150 for field trips.

"If they had a choice, they would rather not go there," Rushing said. "We just don't have any other option."

Paying with a credit card

When single father Vedat Lika of Fort Worth was unemployed for eight months, he constantly worried about how he could afford the high cost of child care for his two 5-year-old children while searching for a job.

Lika, 52, considered enrolling his children in the federally funded, preschool Head Start program. But he said he didn't qualify because he had earned $32,500 a year before being laid off from managing a cafeteria in Arlington.

He looked at getting day care through the Tarrant County Child Care Management Services, the county's largest provider of subsidized care. To qualify, a parent must be employed or going to school at least 25 hours a week. If there are two parents, each must be employed or attending school. Lika was unemployed.

"That is something that some of our parents do voice a concern on, and we totally understand that. But that's one of those policies and procedures that have been in place with the state," said Patricia Walker Looper, director of the Tarrant County program.

"The whole point of this program is for them to get to the point where they can provide for this on their own, and we do have some great success stories," she said.

So Lika relied on the kindness of neighbors and friends, or paid for day care with a credit card, which contributed to a $17,000 tab he's now paying off. Sometimes he took his children on job interviews.

"I know that cost me some jobs, but what could I do?" he said.

He turned down several job offers because the $10 an hour salary range wasn't enough to pay for child care.

Since Lika got his job May 1 working for the Tarrant Area Food Bank, paying for child care is a bit easier. He earns about $40,000 a year teaching low-income adults how to cook for a living.

He pays the Little Shepherd Children's Center in Arlington about $1,000 a month to care for his son, Arman, and daughter, Madison.

This fall, Lika's children plan to attend the East Fort Worth Montessori school, where Lika teaches his classes. But there is always next summer when the school is closed. He will have to worry about paying for day care again.

"If you are going to take care of children, you do the best that you can," Lika said.

Shopping around

With two parents in the home, coordinating child care can be a little easier. But challenges remain.

Ofelia Luevano, 40, was a stay-at-home mom for several years because of back problems and because her family grew after taking in the four Martinez children: Juan, 7, Fabian, 6, Juliette, 7, and Victor, 4, more than two years ago. Three of her own five children still live at home: Omar, 9, Antonio, 11, and Carlos Cisneros, 16.

The family had to live on the $1,800 a month her husband, Antonio, 38, earned as a welder, and that left little money for basics like home repairs and school supplies.

She's now earning $8 an hour for 20 to 25 hours a week at a bridal shop.

"Now that I'm feeling better healthwise I think I will be able to help out with expenses because the house needs a lot of work," Ofelia said. "I want to take advantage of all the years I haven't been able to work."

The Luevanos' 16-year-old son, Carlos, watches his siblings while Ofelia works.

But when school starts in the fall, Ofelia said she will need a day-care provider who can pick them up after school, a task she normally performs.

Someone must keep the children for about three hours until her husband is home from work, she said. Antonio usually arrives home by 5:30 p.m. The couple's youngest two children leave school at 2:30 p.m., and the others around 3:15 p.m.

"We know it's going to be expensive, but we'll have to make something work," Antonio said. "It's probably going to be tough for at least the first few weeks."

Ofelia plans to shop around for child care.

"We will have to see who charges us less for day care and are the most reliable to pick up the kids from school," she said.

Finding quality, low-cost day care is not easy. Tarrant County Child Care Management has 3,800 children on its waiting list for subsidized care.

Nationally, the two major programs -- Head Start and the Child Care and Development Block Grant -- designed to help low-income working parents like the Luevanos are facing cuts, said Helen Blank, director of leadership and policy for the nonprofit National Women's Law Center. There haven't been significant funding increases in Head Start, a $7 billion a year program, or the CCD block grant, an $11 billion a year program, in about the past six years, she said.

"The federal help we've had is shrinking," Blank said. "What we've done is increased the pool of low-income working mothers, but decreased the pool of available child-care money to help them."

Help from relatives

Like Ofelia Luevano, Edwina Lockwood of Arlington struggles with the issue of child care. Her husband, Bobby, works in shipping at Robinson Steel manufacturing plant in Arlington, where he earns $22,880 annually.

A stay-at-home mom, Edwina, 34, takes her three boys with her most places she goes: to the grocery store, to the Goodwill Store and to job-hunting visits at day-care centers. Their relatives help out with baby-sitting sometimes; they watched the kids on a recent weekend night so Bobby and Edwina could have dinner at a Waffle House.

She could probably trust 12-year-old Michael alone at their Arlington apartment, but it makes her uncomfortable.

"I don't like him going outside when I'm not home, so he would be stuck inside all day," she said.

Finding trustworthy and affordable child care for the Lockwoods' three children has been a struggle in the two years since they completed a nine-week self-sufficiency program and moved out of the Arlington Life Shelter.

The shelter pays their $720-a-month rent for their three-bedroom apartment. But those payments end in September, so getting both parents employed becomes more urgent. Even if they qualify for federal housing aid, they'll have to pay some percentage of their rent.

Edwina, who has more than five years' experience working at day-care centers, quit her job at an Arlington center in May 2006 because of a conflict with her supervisors, she said. Around the same time, Bobby, 37, got his job at Robinson Steel.

Since then, she looked for work at other day-care centers. At one center where Edwina filled out an application, a supervisor told her that if she worked there she'd make $230 a week. They would let her bring her two younger children, Robert, 5, and Clayton, 2, for $130 a week. Michael could go to the Boys & Girls Club after school.

She didn't get the job, but she wasn't sure the gas costs would have been worth it.

Average annual cost of care

Nationally the average annual cost of child care for a 4-year-old child ranges between $3,000 and $9,600 and for an infant between $3,800 and $13,500, according to a 2006 report on the high price of child care by the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

Finding help with child care

There's help for low-income families seeking child care in Tarrant County, but getting it can be a job in itself.

Tarrant County Child Care Management Services

The agency helps pay child-care expenses for 6,300 youngsters at 975 child-care centers and licensed homes. The agency has 3,800 children on its waiting list. Parents must be employed or going to school, and their income cannot exceed 185 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that's $37,000 a year.

Fort Worth-based Child Care Associates

The sole grantee for Head Start in Tarrant County has funding for about 2,600 students at its Head Start preschool program, agency Vice President Bob Duke said. Child Care Associates estimates that up to 13,000 Tarrant County children are eligible for the federal program. Child Care Associates also subsidizes child-care costs for about 500 children; about 250 are on a waiting list.

YWCA Fort Worth and Tarrant County

The agency has three early childhood development centers, two in Fort Worth and one in Arlington. The centers are for families who are homeless or have low incomes. A total of 271 children, infants through school age, receive care at any given time. About 600 children are usually on their waiting list.

YMCA of Arlington and YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth

The agencies offer financial aid for their after- and before-school programs and their day camps for school-age kids. The YMCA of Metropolitan Fort Worth also has six preschool programs that have a capacity of 525 children. In 2005 in Fort Worth, 92 percent of children in the preschool program qualified for some financial assistance.

Contact the reporters

Today's report was written by: Adrienne Nettles, anettles@star-telegram.com, 817-685-3820; Elizabeth Campbell, liz@star-telegram.com, 817-390-7696; Traci Shurley, tshurley@star-telegram.com, 817-548-5494; and Melissa Vargas, msanchez@ star-telegram.com, 817-685-3888. Readers' suggestions and comments are welcome.