[atlas:bill]

AN ACT Relating to child care for children in homeless families; adding a new section to chapter 74.13 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that: (1) Homeless families with young children are at significant risk of being unable to develop long-term economic independence; (2) children in such situations are likely to experience immediate and future adverse consequences due to potential instability in their living arrangements and lack of access to services; and (3) homeless families with young children are inadequately served in terms of access to child care and that such inadequacy acts to impair the abilities of these families to locate housing, employment, and other basic family needs. The legislature intends to require the department of social and health services to dedicate an effort to the development of a comprehensive, research-based, integrated plan to expand the availability and delivery of child care services to homeless families with children. The goals of the plan shall be to increase the stability in the lives of families, offer safe and nurturing places for children, and provide expanded opportunities for economic independence.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 74.13 RCW to read as follows:

(1) For purposes of this section:

(a) "Homeless family" means a family with children lacking a fixed and regular nighttime residence or a family whose primary nighttime residence is a:

(i) Supervised shelter designed to provide temporary accommodations;

(ii) Halfway house or similar institution providing temporary residence for persons needing or coming out of institutionalization;

(iii) Temporary accommodation in the residence of another person for not more than ninety days; or

(iv) Place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for humans; and

(b) "Child" or "children" means a child or children who have not reached their fourteenth birthday.

(2) Not later than June 1, 2002, the secretary shall develop, and present to the legislature and governor, a plan for determining the need for child care services for children in homeless families and a method for providing the child care services.

(3) The plan shall include the following, at a minimum:

(a) A determination, by age, of the number of children who are in homeless families;

(b) A determination of the number of child care slots which are dedicated to the children identified in this subsection;

(c) A determination of how many child care slots in addition to those identified in (b) of this subsection are necessary to be dedicated to children in homeless families to reasonably assure that any homeless family which seeks child care slots and lacks the resources to obtain the slots can obtain state-supported child care while they are homeless. The dedication of such slots shall not result in the loss of any child care slots for which state support is available;

(d) A cost estimate for providing the slots identified in (c) of this subsection;

(e) An assumed implementation date of July 1, 2003.

(4) The plan shall assume that children in homeless families are not eligible to continue in child care slots dedicated for children in homeless families longer than thirty calendar days following the date the family is no longer homeless.

(5) The plan shall assume that children in homeless families are not eligible to continue in child care slots dedicated for children in homeless families longer than twelve consecutive months.

(6) The plan shall be developed in consultation with a representative group of persons from those entities which provide child care to homeless children.

(7) The department is required to make certain that services delivered to persons receiving temporary assistance for needy families under chapter 74.08A RCW, and to persons who are receiving child care support under the plan developed under this section, are coordinated. The plan shall have a goal of delivering child care support in a manner that persons enrolled under chapter 74.08A RCW and are receiving child care support remain, to the greatest extent possible, eligible for support under both programs as they attempt to obtain economic independence and stabilized housing.

(8) Under no circumstances shall this plan create an entitlement to these services, nor shall it be construed to create such an entitlement.