City Hall will meet with four Brooklyn childcare centers fighting sudden closures weeks after the city announced it would not renew their leases.
Demonstrators protested the abrupt closures of four Brooklyn childcare centers on the steps of City Hall on February 6. Photo by Paul Frangipane
By Paul Frangipane and Kirstyn Brendlen, Brooklyn Paper
City Hall will meet with four Brooklyn childcare centers fighting sudden closures weeks after the city announced it would not renew their leases.
Just before a February 6 rally at City Hall, the mayor’s office and the Department of Education — which had previously “said unequivocally” that all four centers would have to close — agreed to speak with the facilities and their landlords, according to Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, but couldn’t make any promises beyond that.
“The mayor’s commitment to discussions is a clear sign that community resistance is working — but talk is not enough,” said Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, in a statement. “This is not a real victory until there is an unequivocal commitment to fully reopening these sites and accepting new registrations.”
Last month, the DOE abruptly informed four facilities contracted by the city to provide free and low-cost childcare that it would not be renewing their leases, forcing them to close as soon as June. The decision prompted outrage from families, childcare providers, and local politicians, who packed the steps of City Hall on Thursday in protest.
“These communities have made it very clear to the city that we are not going to allow the shutting down of institutions that helped raise our children, that helped provide for our families, that help this be the greatest city in the entire world,” Reynoso said.
Supporters criticize city data, call out funding issues
The city has claimed that the affected facilities — Nuestros Niños in Williamsburg, Grand Street Settlement in Bushwick, Friends of Crown Heights, and Fort Greene Council — were under-enrolled and too expensive to run with so few children attending.
But the facilities said the DOE’s numbers were wrong, in part because the city is months behind on payments. As of late January, Grand Street Settlement and Nuestros Niños were both owed roughly $1 million and, without that money, could not formally enroll children via the city’s online portal. Nuestros Niños, which the department believed only had four children enrolled, actually has 96, said executive director Ingrid Matias Chungata.
Last week, the city started making back payments to the centers, according to Gothamist.
“If you find a child care center that does not meet the capacity, the answer is not to shut them down immediately, because there are families there that are using them that are going to be harmed,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. “On top of that, you were wrong about capacity … This is not the leadership we need.”
Closures are part of larger issues facing childcare
Comptroller Brad Lander said on Thursday that the move to close the four centers is part of “broader underfunding of childcare by the Adams administration.”
The proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2026 is $300 million short of what’s needed to provide childcare for the families currently receiving it, he said. Last year, Adams slashed millions of dollars from early childhood programs in New York City.
Others doubted the city’s reasons for ending the leases. Robert Cordero, executive director of Grand St. Settlement, said there is a need for childcare in every ZIP code, despite the city’s claims that some neighborhoods are “oversaturated” with providers.
“It cannot be about excuses about enrollment, it cannot be about excuses about saturation of services, this is about real estate and for Grand Street Settlement, I can speak for us, the city has a means to find an alternative if the landlord is asking for too much,” he said.
Chungata urged the mayor to visit Nuestros Niños and speak with the children there. The South Williamsburg facility has been in operation for more than 50 years, and has proved necessary for working families who need childcare to keep their jobs.
“Let’s keep the doors of Nuestros Niños open, we want to be able to stay in the community,” she said. “[Williamsburg] has become gentrified. [Nuestros Niños is] a place where our families need to be, to have a place where they can call home.”
Forging a path forward
City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield said the administration is aware of the concerns of the providers and families impacted by the impending closures.
“We are committed to working with our early childhood education provider partners to find a solution that allows children to continue to attend programs in their neighborhood,” she said.
When reached for comment, the Department of Education referred Brooklyn Paper to a Feb. 7 video posted by department chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos.
In the video, Aviles-Ramos assured families that the affected childcare centers will remain open through the end of the school year.
“Our leadership team are actively engaging with elected officials and providers as we speak as part of our ongoing conversation with them, so that we can forge a path forward that is best for our system, our providers, and our families, together,” she said.
If any of the centers stay open, Reynoso said, the city has committed to a “marketing and enrollment blitz” to make sure they reach capacity. If all four are saved, he added, “we’ll make sure we find the enrollment necessary for them to be there.”
“I think the mayor’s office has come to a realization that they have made a mistake and the only thing holding them back right now is pride, it is pride, because we won,” he said.
Editor’s note: A version of this story originally ran in Brooklyn Paper. Click here to see the original story.
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