NYC reopens low-income childcare program citywide after clearing ‘high-need’ backlog

Mayor Adams’ administration is reopening the city’s subsidized childcare program to applications from low-income residents across all five boroughs after clearing a hefty backlog of priority cases.

Since March, the Administration for Children’s Services has focused on processing requests for subsidized childcare vouchers in 17 “high-need” neighborhoods with the city’s worst poverty and unemployment rates.

But Adams told the Daily News late Tuesday that ACS can start processing applications from low-income New Yorkers in all parts of the city again thanks to the agency sifting through 36,000 backlogged claims over the past seven months.

“We are thrilled to announce that we have completely cleared the childcare voucher waitlist,” Adams said in a statement. “By increasing access to child care for thousands of children across the five boroughs, no parent will have to make that hard choice between childcare and career growth again.”

An ACS spokeswoman could not immediately say how many of the 36,000 applications actually resulted in families receiving subsidized childcare.

In his childcare plan rolled out in June, Adams pledged that his administration would clear ACS’s childcare voucher waitlist “by September 2022.” An Adams spokeswoman said that promise was fulfilled and that the administration only waited to announce the achievement until this month.

The voucher program provides either free or low-cost childcare to families earning less than 300% of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that means earning less than $83,250 annually.

According to Adams’ office, there are 126,500 city kids between the ages of 0 and 5 who are either enrolled in a city-contracted education program or receive a voucher for subsidized childcare.

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, whose portfolio includes ACS, called the backlog clearing “a major milestone.

“Thousands of New York City parents will be able to breathe easier knowing their little ones will be in a nurturing academic environment while they work to take care of their families,” Williams-Isom said.