The impending closure of a busy daycare in Kelowna, B.C., has reached the steps of city hall.
Generally speaking, daycare is a private, but regulated, industry in British Columbia. Yet, the City of Kelowna has been receiving questions on why Building Blocks Educare is closing its Gordon Drive location on Feb. 28, and the massive ripple effect it has.
“It’s horrible because there’s so many of us,” parent Casey McClean said of the closure, which has families scrambling to find child care.
“What are we going to do? I’m a single mom … it’s overwhelming.”
McClean, who works full-time and has a daughter who attends Building Blocks, says she spent a few hundred dollars on applications to be on wait lists at other daycares.
“And everyone is full. I can’t find anyone,” McClean told Global News. “What are we supposed to do?”
For its Gordon Drive location, Building Blocks is leasing space in a building that was sold in 2021. The building will be redeveloped into rental housing — which, like daycare, is also desperately needed in Kelowna.
However, the city told Global News that the redevelopment must include space for a daycare “that may or may not be operated by the same owners.”
“It is not the city’s responsibility to find a new location or to require the developer to find a new location for a private business,” said the city.
“The city would be happy to help advise the owners of the daycare what may be required in terms of a relocation (zoning, parking, permits, etc).”
Kelowna’s mayor says residents are reaching out to see if there is something the city can do.
“Over the last 24 hours, we’ve heard from a number of parents who are concerned with respect to the closing of this daycare,” said Tom Dyas, adding he’s heard it affects around 200 families.
“This transition is going to be very tough on a number of them. So they have reached out to the city.”
Dyas continued, saying, “We know a lot of employers are having a tough time making sure they have enough staff. So it’s difficult from that standpoint for the businesses also.”
The mayor said the city’s real estate department is working to see if it can find “an interim location because it does affect people of our community.”
In the meantime, parents with young children who attend the Gordon Drive location are left in the lurch because finding new daycare, on short notice, is very tough, bordering on impossible.
“There’s a lot of talk of ‘do we rotate (daycare) through parents?’” said Megan Woodruff, who has a daughter who attends Building Blocks and a son on a wait list.
“Do we take five of them today and then the next person takes a day off work and do we do it out of our homes? Do we try and find a nanny or nanny sharing? We’re trying to get creative to figure out how we can still go to work — because we need to go to work.”
Added fellow parent Kelly Nichols: “the biggest frustration has been the very poor communication and transparency. When I switched from another daycare this past summer, I confirmed with them that they would be open until 2025, because I was aware of the development.”
Nichols said parents are waiting for one-and-a-half to two years for a daycare space to open.
Nichols said she was told Building Blocks would either relocate its Gordon Drive location or stay open until 2025.
“For it to come out of the blue that this daycare is going to be closing is an absolute gut-punch to every single parent.”
She added “daycare shouldn’t be a lottery. It should be a right provided to working families so that they have the ability to work.”
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