Chandra and her three children

From the Illinois Times:

by Patrick Yeagle

Chandra Ankoor of Springfield gets three or four hours of sleep a night, seven days a week. She’s not sure how much longer she can keep that up, but she does it for her three young daughters.

On a typical day, Ankoor wakes up early to get her girls ready for school before heading to her first job cleaning houses. She finishes that job just in time to pick her daughters up from school and take them to day care before going to her second job at a restaurant. Ankoor finishes her second job late in the evening, picks her daughters up again, and heads home to sleep, ready to repeat the cycle day in and day out. They live in a one-bedroom duplex with no cable or Internet access.

“Everything I earn goes toward taking care of my children,” Ankoor said. “I have goals; I stay motivated all day. My goal is to finish my schooling so I can earn a good salary and not do these jobs that no one else wants to do.”

Ankoor is one of thousands of parents across Illinois who rely on the Child Care Assistance Program, a state-run program that provides a day care subsidy for families below a certain income level. Changes to the program took effect on July 1, and while Ankoor is grandfathered in, the changes threaten to leave thousands more parents without child care. 

Read the full article from the Illinois Times