MAPLE RIDGE – Local families in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows will soon be able to access 470 new licensed child-care spaces thanks to a $4.019 million investment through the Province’s Child Care Major Capital Funding Program, announced New Democrat Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows MLA Lisa Beare and Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Bob D’Eith.

“I’m so pleased that 470 new child-care spaces will be coming to Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows,” said Beare. “I hear over and over again how difficult it is to access affordable, quality childcare in our community. Our government is committed to changing that and making life more affordable for families in our community and across B.C.”

“For the past 16 years, the child-care crisis in B.C. has been getting worse, not better. Our government that believes that every family deserves access to affordable, quality child-care,” said D’Eith. “These new spaces in our community will make a difference for the many local families I’ve heard from who have been struggling with child-care.”

Through this investment, Maple Ridge will receive 350 new spaces through School District 42 ($3.015 million, 308 spaces) and Creative Cove Holistic Childcare Centre Inc. ($84,867, 42 spaces). Pitt Meadows will receive 120 new spaces through School District 42 ($419,225, 44 spaces), Canyon Springs Montessori Academy ($250,000, 56 spaces), and Hundred Languages Child Care ($250,000, 20 spaces).

This investment will allow child-care providers to:

• Build a new child-care facility, including the cost of buying land or a building.
• Purchase and assemble a modular building and develop a site.
• Renovate an existing building.
• Buy eligible equipment (including playground equipment) and furnishings as part of the above activities to support new child-care spaces in an existing facility.
• The Province is now in the process of working with child-care providers to sign project agreements that include the specific requirements that providers have identified for each site, such as the need to lease or buy property, obtain local zoning permits and hire contractors to renovate the sites.

Accelerating the creation of new child-care spaces is part of the B.C. government’s commitment to improve accessibility for families and supports its long-term goal of implementing universal child-care in B.C. For more information, please visit: www.gov.bc.ca/childcare.

Source: http://bcndpcaucus.ca/news/child-care-spaces-coming-to-maple-ridge-pitt-meadows/