This article originally appeared in the March-April 2006 issue of the Children's Advocate, published by Action Alliance for Children.

Use the Children's Advocate in your work! Feel free to reprint this article, as a handout or in your own publication -- just credit us (see above) and be sure to send us a copy.

Grassroots Snapshot

Family child care providers change laws in Hawthorne

By Elisa Gahng

When long-time family child care provider Natasha Finister heard about new laws limiting family child care in Hawthorne, she got involved. She thought the laws were “unfair,” she says—particularly a $1,000 fee for a new child care license: “It was an absurd amount of money to ask providers to pay.”

Laws limiting child care earned Hawthorne the title of the least child care-friendly city in Los Angeles County in a report card from Public Counsel, a public-interest law firm. Public Counsel worked with Crystal Stairs, a child care resource and referral agency in L..A.., to mobilize family child care providers to speak out. The providers’ public testimony, combined with a lawsuit by Public Counsel, got some restrictions dropped and the fee reduced.

Getting the word out

Hawthorne limited family child care in several ways: by allowing the city to “impose reasonable hours of operation,” requiring providers who were renting to get their landlord’s consent to operate (contrary to state law), and only allowing family child care in single family homes. The law creating the $1,000 fee was also vague about whether it applied to all providers or only new providers, says Public Counsel lawyer Pam Schmidt.

After the report card came out, Schmidt worked with Sydney Kamlager-Santner from Crystal Stairs to contact providers by phone, email, and flyers.

“Someone gave me a phone call and asked me to come to a (city) planning commission meeting,” says provider Phyllis Fleming. “There was no way I (could) pay $1,000 a year, so I went.”

Speaking out

Fleming and a dozen other providers testified at Hawthorne’s city planning commission meeting. “I told them I’ve been a family child care provider for 12 years and these new laws aren’t fair,” says Fleming. “I was nervous but I did it because I needed to.”

“Providers told (commission members) about people with real jobs that needed flexible child care hours. Their testimony was so compelling that the ‘reasonable hours’ provision’ was dropped,” says Kamlager-Santner.

Next, providers spoke at a city council meeting. “I’m a single parent, homeowner, and (have) lived in Hawthorne for more than 30 years,” says Finister. “I decided to voice my opinions as a taxpayer.” Public Counsel also filed a lawsuit against the city to get the fee reduced.

Changing the law

Now Hawthorne has

• dropped the “reasonable hours” provision

• reduced the $1,000 fee to $100

• changed the law requiring landlord consent

The law limiting child care to single family homes is still on the books.

Fleming says, “We went to fight something that was not right and someone on that panel listened. My English isn’t that good, but you can get up and try. Someone is going to understand what you’re saying, someone is going to relate.”

“If (providers) hadn’t come forward,” says Haw-thorne City Council Member, Gary Parsons, “I would never have known how important it is to have a lot of local day care options.”

Finister agrees, “When providers band together, changes actually can be made. We showed that, just by us speaking out together.”

• Crystal Stairs, 323-421-1400

Return to top

Action Alliance
for Children
e-mail aac@4children.org
1201 Martin Luther
King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 444-7136