Families flee NYC in droves over child care costs, affordability

Families with young children are increasingly grappling with whether to leave the five boroughs in search of more affordable child care and housing.

The exodus of families from the Big Apple worsened after the pandemic, but is reaching a fever pitch as housing costs increase and the cost of child care continues to rise, becoming a focal point among elected officials fighting over the future of the city’s free universal preschool program. A report by the Fiscal Policy Institute released earlier this summer found families with children aged 6 or younger are twice as likely to leave the city as those without children. Though households with young children make up 14% of the city’s population, they represent 30% of those leaving, the report said.

Gothamist interviewed four sets of parents who shared the reasons why they left — or are planning to leave — the city. They all described anxiety over the cost of child care and housing, as well as a feeling that the city they love was pushing them out. Taken together, their stretched budgets and frayed nerves point to the dire economic circumstances that could dramatically change who lives in the city.

“We are a constituency that has to be reckoned with,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, which was established eight months ago to fight for affordable child care options.

“I hear over and over again from families that are Black, white, Latino, Asian, from all families of all different backgrounds who tell me, 'I grew up here, I worked here for 10 or 20 or 30 years and it feels like the city is no longer for me,'” Bailin said. “That the city is really only for the richest New Yorkers.”

Growing affordability concerns are top of mind for New Yorkers, particularly around child care. A March Siena poll found 48% of New Yorkers say they’re spending more on monthly child care costs than they were two years ago. And respondents overwhelmingly said they were spending more on housing, food and transportation costs this year compared to two years ago.

But Mayor Eric Adams’ budget will still cut funding to the city’s popular 3-K and pre-K programs, even after he struck a deal with the City Council to restructure the system. Adams promised that families who need a slot in the program will be able to get one, after hundreds of parents were placed on a 3-K waiting list or matched with seats too far from their neighborhoods.

For some families, those assurances are coming too late. Gothamist spoke to New Yorkers who left the city or are contemplating moving out and what contributed to their decision.

Tamara Shephard, 35, moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania earlier this month with her 2-year-old son, her husband and dog. They went from renting a 600-square-foot, three-bedroom apartment in Prospect Lefferts Gardens to owning a 2,000-square-foot townhouse with a small yard.

Their monthly mortgage payments will cost less than their $2,700 monthly rent.

Shephard says leaving the city where she met her husband and spent 12 years of her life is bittersweet but the relocation was necessary to afford the life she wants for her son, who receives early intervention services virtually at home.

“We definitely thought about staying, or maybe having another [child] here, but as we were doing services in our home, it became really apparent we have no space, I'd be tripping over stuff,” she said. Shephard said she didn’t want to keep moving her family between apartments. And she liked the thought of owning something she could pass on to her children.

The math made sense, too.

The landlord of their Brooklyn home wanted to raise the rent on their apartment by $700. Day care programs in the area averaged around $2,500 a month. In Lancaster, Shephard plans to enroll her son in a Montessori program for a fraction of the cost: $950 a month.

Still, the move was bittersweet.

“I just want to be able to give him the best life possible and there's a lot of things about New York that would be the best life possible in terms of diversity and just really getting to see people of all backgrounds, all cultures, all religions. Being a part of that in terms of keeping an open-minded child, I think that's the best,” she said. “But it's just, it's not possible for us.”

Caroline Fermin, 39, lives in a $2,000 rent-stabilized apartment in Washington Heights with her husband and their two children. Fermin and her husband are both Juilliard-educated performing artists who teach at Barnard College and perform regularly across the city.

Fermin and her family were waitlisted from the city’s 3-K program for her oldest son — throwing her budget plan into freefall and forcing her family to seriously consider whether they could afford to stay in the city.

“We timed out the second kid based on when [our oldest] would enter free child care. Because we were like we can swing one daycare bill,” she said. “Maybe this was dumb on my part, making all these life decisions based on this promise of free quality child care.”

Although she eventually landed a 3-K seat for her oldest child, it was too far away and would disrupt her work schedule. She had safety concerns about another 3-K program offered by the city. Fermin now needs to pay for private child care for both her children, which would cost about $2,700 a month.

Fermin said her apartment is also in desperate need of repairs. There was a fire in the building, a partial ceiling collapse in another unit and it just isn’t safe for young kids. She said they need to find another place to live — an apartment that likely won’t be rent stabilized — which will only add to their growing expenses.

But balancing their teaching schedules and drop-off and pickup times for their children means Fermin and her husband need to stay in Manhattan, where rent prices have risen more than 25% this year for a one-bedroom apartment compared to 2019, according to StreetEasy. Vacancy rates across the city are also at their lowest in decades, with less than 1% of units priced under $2,400 available for rent, the city’s latest housing survey found.

“I've really poured my heart and soul into the city,” Fermin said. “It would be like breaking up with a place that is rich in culture and history and friends and community.”

Umme Khan, 30, grew up in Queens and lives in Flushing with her family. She met her husband in high school and they now have two sons, ages 3 and 4. Khan and her husband both graduated from the city’s public schools and universities and now teach in the public education system. But in a year, they plan to leave their longtime home. They’re not sure where they’ll move, perhaps Pennsylvania, New Jersey or abroad.

“I've been pretty much a Queens girl for my whole life,” Khan said. “It's really tearing us apart.”

Though her children are enrolled in the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs this fall, Khan and her husband still have to pay for a summer program and for extended care hours to cover the full work day. The cost stretches their budget even though they have free care lined up for several hours a day.

Parents who need more than six hours of child care per day have to pay extra, if their city-funded preschool program offers it. Only families who earn below certain income levels are eligible for free extended 3-K and pre-K programs that run year-round and cover eight to 10 hours a day.

Khan said rising food and child care costs, as well as the difficulty of buying a home, are driving her out of the city. After a decade as an educator, she doesn’t want to keep living paycheck to paycheck and bouncing between apartments.

“We want our kids to be raised here. We want our children to grow up the way we grew up, but essentially it's becoming impossible,” Khan said.

Brendan O'Dwyer, 47, his wife Ryanne Woltz, 43, and their three children left their Stuy Town apartment for Pennsylvania three years ago.

The final straw was when their child care center closed during the pandemic, prompting a scramble to find a replacement that worked for their budget and growing family.

“Once that fell apart, the dynamic changed. You kind of saw the writing on the wall after that,” he said.

O’Dwyer’s mortgage for his home in the Philadelphia suburb of West Chester is almost half of what his rent used to be, and each of his kids has their own room.

“We had three kids and a dog in a two-bedroom, 750-square-foot apartment,” Woltz said. She recalled that at that point they were spending nearly $11,000 each month on housing and day care costs.

“We had outgrown the space. We weren't willing to spend more money to get a larger apartment," she said.

O’Dwyer, who was born in Manhattan and grew up in Yonkers and Mount Vernon, said leaving was the right decision for their family. But he still misses the magic of living in the city.

“During the pandemic, I made friends with the lead singer of a band I like just walking down the street,” he recalled. ”Next thing I know, me and him are walking our dogs together. It's like, wow, where else in the world could this happen?”