New York City announced on Oct. 5 that it will move more than 10,000 children off the waitlist for Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) vouchers and into free child care. The Administration for Children's Services will send application invitations to waitlisted families over the coming weeks.
New York City will provide free child care to more than 10,000 children who were on the waitlist for vouchers under the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the city's Administration for Children's Services (ACS) announced the plan on Oct. 5. ACS will begin sending voucher application invitations to waitlisted families within the next few weeks, with invitations going out in stages over several months.
The program covers low-income children from 6 weeks old to 13 years old, and up to age 19 for children receiving special education services. Under federal rules, priority goes to families with incomes below 300% of the federal poverty level, families experiencing homelessness, and families with children who need special education services. Families that receive a voucher can use it at a child care provider of their choice. No application deadline has been announced.
The funding comes from the $1.2 billion that Gov. Kathy Hochul committed to the city's free child care initiative. Of that amount, $475 million has been allocated to CCAP vouchers. The city also spent a separate $5.2 million to eliminate the copayments that families receiving vouchers had been paying.
How to Find Providers That Accept Vouchers
The city has added a new feature to its child care map (nyc.gov/childcare). Users can search for licensed child care providers and filter the results to show only those that accept vouchers. Families on the waitlist can use the map to look at nearby providers before their invitations arrive.
The figures given for the size of the waitlist differed at the announcement. Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas said nearly 29,000 low-income children had been waiting for more than a year, while Councilmember Gale Brewer said the wait time was 16 months. Child care advocacy groups said chronic underfunding is the reason for the waitlist and called for better pay for teachers and full funding of CCAP. Separately, the city has launched the free child care program for 2-year-olds, known as 2-K, and plans to expand 3-K.