Some Head Start facilities, which serve young children from lower-income families, are set to lose funding due to the government shutdown.
About 140 Head Start programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico will lose operational funding on Nov. 1, absent action from Congress, according to the National Head Start Association.
Head Start, a federally funded program that provides free child care and preschool to lower-income families, has about 1,600 facilities.
The facilities that will lose funding employ about 22,432 workers and provide care for about 65,000 children, or about 10 percent of the preschool kids in Head Start, the association estimates.
“With each passing day of the shutdown, families are pushed closer to crisis. In fact, on November 1, 65,000 Head Start children in communities across America are at risk of losing the learning, nutrition, health services, and the stability they depend on,” Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the group, said in a statement….