Clinton Hill Mom on Daycare Cuts: 'This Is a Tax On Poor and Working People'

Liz Baker, a Clinton Hill single mother and high school teacher, is used to juggling multiple priorities.

But since announced it would , Baker is now in a frantic scramble to find low-cost options for her 5-year-old son.

"They have not given us any other alternatives," Baker said as she joined dozens of other parents, guardians and childcare professionals at a rally to save the center on Friday.

Like many other Young Mind parents, Baker enrolled her son in both Young Mind's daycare and afterschool programs in an effort to balance a demanding work and home schedule.

But with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's —which come on top of successive years of budget slashing—the social safety net that single and working parents like Baker have relied on for generations seems to be quickly slipping away.

Brooklyn parent Vincent Council, Sr., whose two grown children attended Young Minds programs, came to the rally to lend his voice on behalf of other parents.

"This has been a landmark for the community for years," Council said, crediting Young Minds for helping shepherd both his son and daughter to respected schools.

But as of Friday, it looked like Young Minds would soon be just a memory for parents, educators and alumni.

According to Young Minds director Carol Mills, the center's Request for Funding Proposal was recently rejected by the city Administration of Child Services due to what many at Friday's protest called an unfair grading system.

"Right now, there is no way to continue running," Mills said.

That reality had Baker looking—in vain—to other nearby daycare and afterschool alternatives for her son, including a program run by the YMCA at P.S. 11 that was also slashed due to budget cuts.

With few, if any, low-cost options remaining, Baker said she was considering hiring a private, and perhaps uncertified, caretaker for her son.

"This is a tax on poor and working people," she said.