Phew! That was a close call…

For years the biggest obstacle we face at Skookum has been the lack of childcare across Whatcom County, but particularly to the north and east of Bellingham. If we cannot find childcare, we cannot place children into the loving families that we have trained to do the job of foster care. As the cost of housing—among most things—has risen, and more foster families include two working adults, our need for childcare has grown. That's why we participated in the drafting, endorsing, and passing of Proposition 5: The Healthy Children's Fund.

And thanks to YOU—the voters of Whatcom County—Proposition 5 passed, dedicating $100 million over the next 10 years to expand affordable childcare, prevent family homelessness, and prevent child abuse across our community.

It was a very close election.

This is an ambitious plan that brought strong reactions from across our community. In the end, it received majority support which is great news for young families particularly those living in the unincorporated parts of the county where the need is most acute.

Once the Health Children's Fund starts to take effect in a few months, Skookum Kids won't have any trouble finding childcare for the children we place, giving us the chance to serve more families and serve them more effectively. It's worth stopping for a minute to reflect on what we've learned throughout this process, and to consider what comes next.

What did we learn?

Big problems require ambitious solutions, and not everybody will like that.

A needs assessment conducted in 2019 by the WWU Department of Economics concluded that we need to create almost 5,000 new licensed childcare slots just to keep up with demand. That means tripling the amount of childcare we have in our community. 

And then COVID-19 arrived. In the subsequent 2 years, we produced 10 net new childcare slots. That shows how dire the situation is, and why such a big investment is needed. But big investments are scary. What if it doesn't pay off right away? What if something changes? What if there's a better way that we haven't found yet? What if? What if? What if?

Boldly taking on a big, hard problem with an ambitious solution is controversial by nature. It is impossible to please everyone. The best you can do is be clear about the problem(s) you're hoping to solve, the solutions you are using, and show your work along the way. Be equally candid about success and failure. Let people see you learn and improve along the way. Don't ask people to trust you, ask people to watch you work and hold you accountable. 

The Healthy Children's Fund is not a 50-point plan that pretends to foresee every complication ahead of us. It's a list of goals, a pot of money, and a set of rules designed to ensure continuous improvement in pursuit of those goals. Design inspired in large part by an excellent essay by Matthew Yglesias about how to make policy in a low-trust world.

Collaboration is hard, but worth it.

This project was a team effort with contributions from four different local nonprofits, several business,government leaders, and many passionate community leaders who came to the table with willing hands. It was a Herculean effort to get all of us aligned and working toward a shared goal, and then keeping us aligned throughout the ordinance drafting and the campaigning phases. Heather Flaherty of the Chuckanut Health Foundation deserves much of the credit for that. Many people made essential contributions, and she would be the first to deflect credit, but the truth is: Heather pulled the group together and kept the group together through many challenges. She is the reason the coalition was so broad and diverse. 

What happens next?

Implementation work is already underway.

Some things are easy to do, but hard to do well. Deploying capital is a case-in-point. It would be the easiest thing in the world to start doling out the funds to legacy childcare providers to subsidize their operations, but that would not accomplish the very specific goals of the fund. 

To have those particular effects, some sophistication is required. The funds will need to go out in a variety of ways, some with specific terms and requirements, some through a competitive bid process. Some funds will have an impact right away, and some will make investments that stand to make enormous payoffs, but not for many years. Balancing the risks and rewards, the long vs. short term impact, the geographical and cultural equity concerns, all of that is work ahead of us.

Fortunately we have a head start. Healthy Whatcom has been meeting for years, compiling community input and designing strategies to address these issues. The Child and Family Well-Being Taskforce has been advising the County Council for two years now. All of this effort now stands to inform the early investments made from the Healthy Children's Fund. We still have some tough choices to make, but we are choosing between many great options. 

We have to keep showing up to hold our government accountable.

Governments are exactly as effective as people insist they be. The dysfunction and inefficiency that big bureaucracies are notorious for, are less a result of the 'bigness' and more a result of the absence of accountability. Proposition 5 was written with these facts in mind, so it includes robust accountability. But for it to work, we have to stay engaged. Proposition 5 is not a pass-and-forget ordinance. Its success on the ballot simply earns us the right to keep showing up and keep insisting that our government respond to the needs of children & families. And it should eliminate the ever present excuse: "We'd love to, but we don't have the money." Because thanks to the voters of Whatcom County, that isn't true anymore.

Skookum will post periodic updates as The Healthy Children’s Fund progresses and opportunities to get involved. Prop 5 passing is not the end, it is only the beginning.