Quality, cost, availability: Thousands of NC parents facing childcare crisis

Many working parents in North Carolina are facing a childcare crisis.

Availability in the state's assistance program for early childcare falls far short of the number of parents who apply for it.

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Priscilla Lyman, a single mom, receives state subsidies to help with the costs of two sons in early childcare programs. She said getting help wasn't easy.

"I was on the wait list for over a year to get my kids into anything," Lyman said.

Without help, the cost of a quality program like "A Safe Place" in Raleigh can cost close to $10,000 a year.

"I couldn't afford it, but I had to work, because I had to do something for my kids," Lyman said.

To receive state assistance, parents must have a job and qualify as low-income. The program currently serves about 80,000 families per year, and 30,000 families are on the wait list.

"So only about 20-percent of all families, even those who qualify, ever get assistance through that program," said Michelle Rivest from the N.C. Early Education Coalition.

According to Rivest, the uncertainties of childcare cause parents to be less dependable in the workforce.

As a result, their children are less likely to get the head start they need to be successful in school.

"As expensive as it is, that would only allow us to serve 6,000 more children out of the 30,000 that are on the wait list," Rivest said.

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Lyman now works at A Safe Place, which discounts the cost for both of her sons -- but she and her boys still live with her parents.

"I can't survive on my own without support," Rivest said.