CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 A Westside Corpus Christi childhood center that served families for about 15 years has closed its doors, and three more centers in the area face the same fate.<\/p>\n
The Margarite Street location was part of Neighborhood Centers of Corpus Christi. CEO Cesar Flores says the closure comes down to lost funding from both the federal and state government.<\/p>\n
Westside childhood center closes after 15 years amid funding cuts, more at risk<\/p>\n
“How did we get here? We got here by the fact that we’ve lost a lot of funding that was provided to us by both the federal and the state government,” Flores said.<\/p>\n
Flores warns the closures are creating a gap in affordable childcare access for Westside families.<\/p>\n
“The west side of Corpus is slowly becoming an early learning center desert where you’re not gonna have affordable childcare,” Flores said.<\/p>\n
He says the burden now falls on families to find alternatives.<\/p>\n
“They have no affordable childcare, and that’s a huge impact on the families that really need to get to work,” Flores said.<\/p>\n
Roxanne Broadway, a mother of two children under 2, knows that struggle firsthand. Her son, Raiden, was born six weeks premature, making trusted, affordable childcare even more critical for her family.<\/p>\n
“In the beginning it was really hard to establish working and making sure that my kids are being taken care of,” Broadway said.<\/p>\n
Broadway also works at a Neighborhood Centers location, which gives her a discount on childcare. Without it, she says the cost would be overwhelming.<\/p>\n
“It would just become nearly impossible. It would be paycheck to paycheck, borrowing when we don’t want to borrow, and it would be extremely hard for, I think, any mother in that kind of situation,” Broadway said.<\/p>\n
She says families already struggling to make ends meet have even fewer affordable options available to them.<\/p>\n
“What am I gonna do? We need more income, we need someone to watch the kids,” Broadway said.<\/p>\n
Flores says the families who still need these services are what worry him most. He hopes to raise money at a centennial celebration and fundraiser planned for November, marking 100 years of Neighborhood Centers serving Corpus Christi families.<\/p>\n
Three Neighborhood Centers locations remain open \u2014 all on the Westside \u2014 but Flores says those centers are also at risk of closing.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n
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