Senator Maria Cantwell visits RoseMary's Place Daycare

DAYTON–Two socio-economic issues challenge young families in this day and age–affordable daycare and affordable housing. Thanks to a local partnership that received assistance from Washington Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), families in Columbia County and the surrounding region are getting some support with their daycare issues.

That's what Sen. Cantwell and YWCA Executive Director Anne-Marie Schwerin discussed when Cantwell paid a visit to RoseMary's Place June 26, the YWCA-operated daycare situated in the former Booker Rest Home wing at Dayton General Hospital, and saw first-hand the result of a collaboration between the Walla Walla YWCA and the Columbia County Hospital District that attempts to make a dent in the "daycare crisis."

Cantwell made a stop while in the area to see the result. Hospital commissioners approved the $658,000 project to convert Booker Rest Home, receiving $413,000 from federal sources, $100,000 from the Washington State Department of Commerce, $100,000 via a grant from the Sherwood Trust, and the remainder through local private funds, according to CEO Shane McGuire. The YWCA operates the daycare under a lease agreement.

RoseMary's Place opened last April and is licensed for 40 children, eight infants, 13 toddlers and 19 preschoolers. Under the Working Connections Child Care program, families may qualify for financial assistance if household income is at or below 60% of the statewide median income.

Cantwell seemed impressed by the quality of the facility as the door opened to the darkened infant room, with its eight napping babies.

The toddlers were also sawing logs on floor mats, splayed helter-skelter around the room as Cantwell and an entourage of media and staff quietly shuffled through. But there was plenty going on in the 3-6 room, where the youngsters presented Cantwell with a homemade card and a stuffed RoseMary's Place elephant from Annelise Britt. Cantwell graciously accepted the offerings, smiling to gathered reporters and playing off the notion that her political party is represented by a donkey. "Oh, you guys are making my day," Senator Cantwell remarked.

A Whatcom County facility is combining the elder-care housing situation with daycare, Cantwell said. The project in Bellingham involves a housing project for seniors in the upper stories and a daycare center on the ground floor. "In the building, they planned for all this integration," Cantwell said, "so that the seniors had capacity to come down and watch the kids. They get the best of both."

"It was really hard as a provider to bridge that gap, too," said Anne-Marie Schwerin, YWCA Executive Director, "because they were obviously in a smaller community resources and support, so, it made it almost like an impossible challenge."

One of the challenges across the nation is finding available facilities that are cost effective to renovate, Cantwell noted.

"It brings people to move to Columbia County," commented Stephanie Carpenter, Chief Operating Office of the Health System. "You have health care, you have a school and you have daycare."

"When you think about the needs of our communities," Cantwell said, "because what we need: we need more affordable housing for a growing senior population, and we need affordable daycare. So if you can match them together...."

Cantwell said she had been in Clarkston earlier in the day and learned that Clarkston's statistics indicated the same proportions of seniors and other ages as in retirement-heavy Florida.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) is involved in 90% of the affordable housing that's built, Cantwell said. "We've been trying to expand it and we've been trying to explain to people that it really does help rural areas as much as urban areas," Cantwell said. "If you have no capacity, it's the same. In a rural area, it gives you a lot of constraints and it just doesn't take long for that price to just make it unaffordable to get people to move there. And then again, if you're not right next to another community, where you going to go and get relief from that...makes it challenging. Really, it's a problem everywhere.

RoseMary's Place is the result of a collaborative effort between CCHS and YWCA with financial support of YWCA community partners including the Sherwood Trust, Wildhorse Foundation, Columbia REA, the Blue Mountain Community Foundation's Warren Community Action Fund, Innovia Foundation and the Columbia County Children's Fund, and BMCF's Dayton/Columbia County Washington Fund.