Oregon’s Head Start programs serving nearly 12,000 children are set to avoid an anticipated nationwide trend of facility closures caused by the ongoing government shutdown until at least the end of the year.
The government shutdown that began Oct. 1 has put the early childhood education and readiness program at risk of closures across the nation, adding more uncertainty to ongoing legal disputes with the Trump administration over the program’s future and whether it should serve immigrants without permanent legal status. But Oregon families who rely on Head Start can count on state funding to fill the gap, at least for the time being.
A Wednesday statement signed by more than 125 groups supporting families nationwide, including the Oregon Head Start Association, Southern Oregon Head Start, and Head Start Lane County, urged Congress to end the shutdown immediately. The groups warned that 140 Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico will “not have received their operational funding” by Saturday. Oregon received more than $195 million for federal Head Start program funding last year.
“These programs serve more than 65,000 young children, providing valuable early learning, nutrition, child care, health screenings, and other important services,” the statement reads. “Without funding, many of these programs will be forced to close their doors, leaving children without care, teachers without pay, and parents without the ability to work.”
Although four Oregon Head Start locations missed out on those funds, none have reported closing, according to Nancy Perin, executive director of the Wilsonville-based Oregon Head Start Association.
A 60-day deal being hashed out by the early learning and care department allowed them to instead tap into existing funding from programs such as the Oregon Prenatal to Kindergarten program, the state’s equivalent to Head Start created back in 1987, she said. The Oregonian/OregonLive.com first reported on the move in mid-October.
Exact figures are not yet available, but program leaders plan to meet in Salem on Thursday with the agency’s Early Learning Programs Director Dorothy Spence to discuss more concrete guidelines, Perin said. At least one other Head Start funding recipient — the Hood River-based nonprofit Mid-Columbia Children’s Council — could lose its annual December grant funding if the shutdown continues and a deal is not hashed out, according to Perin. That organization serves more than 700 families throughout the Columbia River Gorge area.
“At this point, our four November programs have their doors open,” Perin told the Capital Chronicle. “They’re serving children and families today, and they will continue to. As this federal shutdown continues, then things start getting a little more wonky.”
Kate Gonsalves, a spokesperson for the early learning department, confirmed that agency leaders will be meeting with the Oregon Head Start Association later this week. She said programs that qualify for the temporary funding agreement are dually funded by the state and federal governments. To receive assistance, a Head Start provider must experience a delay in access to their federal funds, she said, and the assistance cannot exceed the total amount of money awarded to a program by Oregon annually.
“It’s important to note that this is not a loan to Head Start programs and is not ‘backfilling,’” Gonsalves wrote in a Monday statement. “These are dual-funded programs so the state dollars are not replacing federal funds but can be drawn down earlier in the cycle.”
Oregon is currently a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by Democratic states across the nation seeking to block the Trump administration’s revocation of a 1998 federal rule allowing immigrants regardless of their legal status to access community-based programs such as certain health clinics, early childhood care and addiction services. Attempting to regulate access to the program based on immigration status is unprecedented, according to Head Start providers in Oregon who say such a move could imperil services with burdensome eligibility requirements.
Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice have contended in court filings that the government shutdown has prevented them from being able to generate administrative records necessary for the case to continue following existing deadlines. One case in the U.S. District Court of Washington centering on the concerns of Head Start advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union has been paused since Oct. 2.
But in September, a federal judge in the U.S District Court of Rhode Island sided with the Democratic states and halted its enforcement in their states through a preliminary injunction. Since then, U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy has given the federal government until Nov. 21 to produce records after justice department lawyers requested an extension.
In the meantime, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek directed $5 million to food banks throughout the state, tapping on reserves of federal funds for families needing temporary economic assistance. The federal government also announced Monday that it would work to fund benefits at half the normal payment rate after two federal judges on Saturday ordered the Trump administration to tap into emergency funds and provide Americans’ benefits. The average individual receives about $6 a day in food stamp benefits.
Perin also voiced support for families amid a pause in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Benefits, which were previously set to run out for Oregonians statewide at the beginning of November. Around 210,000 of the state’s more than 750,000 SNAP recipients are children.
“Knowing our Head Start programs and the ones even across the nation, they’re doing things where they’re collecting food, helping direct (people) to resources in their communities where they can go get food boxes at different food banks and everything,” Perin said. “So we’ll do everything we can to keep these families from being impacted too much.”
By Shaanth Kodialam Nanguneri of news partner Oregon Capital Chronicle
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