Hunger Network in Ohio Second Thursday Advocate Check-in April 11
The Hunger Network in Ohio, a key partner in statewide advocacy for policies promoting food and housing security and other critical goals like quality K-12 public schools, holds a monthly Zoom for advocates statewide on the second Thursday from 7 to 8 p.m. This event is excellent for getting policy news, sharing your work, and asking questions. Sign up here.
Ohio’s two Episcopal dioceses team up for advocacy
The Rev. Meribah Mansfield, who spearheaded our diocese’s Becoming Beloved Community work (including writing three consecutive successful United Thank Offering grant proposals!), now lives and serves in the Diocese of Ohio. She organized an exciting meeting a few weeks ago between the Rev. Rosalind Hughes, who was then the Diocese of Ohio’s Canon for Peace, the Rev. Catherine Duffy, Chair of our Creation Care and Environmental Justice Commission, and me to explore how the dioceses could work together. Since then, Bishop Anne Jolly of the Diocese of Ohio announced new staff appointments, including naming Miriam McKenney as Interim Canon for Mission to advance racial justice and reconciliation in the Diocese of Ohio, as she does in ours.
Bishop Jolly appointed Rosalind Hughes as Interim Canon for Mission to equip clergy and laypeople for peace and justice ministries.
Faith Leaders Lunch at Statehouse April 16
Canon Rosalind Hughes organized our first joint advocacy collaboration by recruiting two priests from Northern Ohio to attend the Faith Leaders Luncheon next Tuesday at the Ohio Statehouse at 11 a.m., advocating with legislators and staff for housing solutions. Three Southern Ohio folks are going too: the Rev. Jed Dearing and Brad Sturm of Trinity, Capitol Square, and me. We’re hoping two people can attend from City Heart at Christ Church Dayton, too. If your congregation or community-based organization serves people who struggle to pay for housing – mortgage, property tax, or rent – please come! Tickets are $35. Hunger Network, the Ohio Council of Churches, and the Dominican Sisters of Peace organize this event. The Diocese of Southern Ohio is a sponsor!
Discussions underway on child care policy
Governor DeWine is proposing changes to the rating system and reimbursement for child care in Ohio, where workers and employers are both crippled by a critical shortage of affordable child care, particularly in rural areas. Stakeholders, including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, and philanthropic organizations, including the Women’s Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, discuss an array of structural changes needed to increase the availability of child care. Please let me know if you want to share your expertise and experience with policymakers.
Policy Matters Ohio has summarized the factors in the crisis: “State legislators have driven Ohio’s child care system into crisis, according to a new report released today by Policy Matters Ohio. The state makes it more difficult than any other for parents to qualify for Publicly Funded Child Care (PFCC). It reimburses PFCC providers so poorly that the federal government has had to step in to demand policy changes. As a result, too few providers can afford to stay open, and too few families can access affordable child care.”
Families without subsidies pay a considerable share of their income – in some cases, more than mortgage or rent. “Right now, Ohio reimburses all publicly funded child care facilities at the 35th percentile, which means that families making up to 145% of the federal poverty line — currently about $43,500 in annual income for a four-person family — only have access to the cheapest 35% of child care centers in their area,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
This is also a crisis for employers, as significant expansions are underway. However, the high cost and shortage of child care are considerable obstacles to parents who could otherwise apply for these jobs.
Policy Matters continues: “‘By forcing providers to operate with extremely narrow margins, Ohio’s policymakers are driving many out of business,’ said report co-author Kathryn Poe. ‘The ones that survive often can’t afford to retain qualified staff. Ohio’s child care workers are paid $13.15 an hour at the median — too little to make ends meet, and far less than the real value of their work.’
“Ohioans in the child care workforce — disproportionately Black women — have been leaving in large numbers: From 2017 to 2022, the number of child care workers in Ohio dropped by 35.89%. ‘Child care providers are doing some of the most important work of all,” report co-author Ali Smith said. ‘But they are so badly undervalued that they can often make higher wages in retail or food service jobs.’
The Governor proposes to change the quality rating system and move more state funds to the lowest-rated programs, which tend to serve poorer families. “The changes are aimed at meeting a federal demand that Ohio raise its child care subsidy rates for poorer families, which was tied for the lowest of any state in the nation until state officials temporarily raised it a few months ago using federal coronavirus money,” reports the Plain Dealer.
“However, Ohio lawmakers have been unwilling to spend other state money to satisfy long-term federal requirements. These proposed changes are the DeWine administration’s attempt to meet the feds’ demands by moving around existing child care subsidy money.”
Advocacy updates are compiled by Ariel Miller, a longtime community advocate and member of Ascension & Holy Trinity, Wyoming. Connect with her at arielmillerwriter@gmail.com.
