MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — For families experiencing homelessness, the cost of childcare can be a huge barrier to finding stability.
Toniel Brett, 30, is currently staying at People Serving People with her 10-month-old son, Leo. Brett grew up in foster care and has been struggling ever since.
"My situation has been a little unstable most of my adult life. It made me kind of vulnerable to bad situations," Brett said.
Brett is in the process of enrolling at Minneapolis Community & Technical College to study psychology. While she has appointments and meetings, Leo is looked after by teachers in People Serving People's infant classroom. The Minneapolis nonprofit is focused on ending childhood, youth and family homelessness and runs the largest shelter for families experiencing homelessness in the region.
"We take a very comprehensive approach here at People Serving People, trying to address many of the barriers that families face as they're trying to move from homelessness to stability," said Daniel Gumnit, CEO of People Serving People. "One of our biggest areas that we invest in is education and early childhood development."
Parents who live in the shelter can enroll their kids in infant, toddler, preschool prep, or preschool classes as part of the Early Childhood Development Program. Gumnit said they noticed a growing need for infant care which led to them recently expanding the program.
Their infant classroom used to be divided in half with toddlers on one side and babies on the other. Now the entire room is dedicated to babies ages six weeks to 18-months-old. As a result of the expansion, they've combined their preschool classes.
"We were running off of a wait-list of three or four families which is half of what we could enroll in the school," said Emma Juon, educational services manager at People Serving People.
They've expanded their infant program from six spots to nine and will soon be adding a third full-time teacher.
"90 percent of a child's brain develops by the time they're five and a lot of those connections are made in the first three years. So getting those first three years right is critical for early learning and future school success," Juon said. "We work really intentionally with children on fostering peer relationships, on developing language skills... being able to label and name those emotions and know what to do with big, hard, scary emotions."
People Serving People also has K-12 after-school programs. Last year, more than 450 Minnesota kids experiencing homelessness were part of the organization's free education programs.
"Our need is reflecting what I think everybody is seeing in the community, that there's just increased need for early ed and childcare for infants. It's very, very difficult to find openings and the cost is extremely high. Here in Minnesota, unfortunately, the cost of our infant care is some of the highest in the country," Gumnit said.
Brett is applying to the Jeremiah Program which would allow her to go to school and receive on-site childcare. In the meantime, the infant care at People Serving People is allowing her more freedom to make appointments and prepare for the next step.
She said about her son, Leo, "He needs to be doing developmental stuff and learning and socializing with other kids. It's nice for him to be able to do that while I'm out building our life."