B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: New Data Highlights Importance of Governor Hochul’s Plan to Deliver Universal Child Care Statewide for Millions of New York Families

Earlier today, Governor Hochul underscored the importance of her plan to deliver universal childcare for children under five years old across the state by highlighting the link between universal, affordable childcare and a more affordable and prosperous state. Women in Need (Win) President Christine Quinn joined Governor Hochul to meet with families experiencing homelessness to discuss the difficulty of finding affordable child care options, and how universal child care would ease a significant financial burden for these families and others around the state.

B-ROLL of the Governor greetings kids and families at the Win child care center is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. First of all, I want to thank our host, the President and CEO of Win, Christine Quinn, an extraordinary leader. I have followed Chris's career for many, many years and not just her ascension to become the Speaker of the City Council, but also what she has done afterward reminds a little more of Jimmy Carter. The incredible impact that someone has when they leave office and dedicate their lives to continuing their passion, which is to help women and children. So I want to thank her and everyone at Win here for the incredible work you do, incredible work you do. My partner in lifting up families and women and children, our Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, you'll be hearing from him in a couple of minutes. But again this is what a partnership looks like. This is a little foreign to New Yorkers perhaps. They're not accustomed to seeing people who can collaborate and get real results and that's exactly what our significant investments in childcare has done. And we've had some announcements this week and I'm really, really proud of them. And thank you Mayor for your passion on this issue as well. And of course, our Borough President, Brad Hoyman-Sigal, who I see a lot more now than when he was a senator, although I just came down from Albany and you're probably a little jealous. No?

[...]

Yeah, it hasn't changed. But we miss you Brad. But I want to talk today about where we are first of all. When I come to a place that is a shelter, a shelter from the storm for moms and children, it reminds me of something that my own family did when my mother turned 70. Now my mother's family, she grew up in a place where there was domestic violence, a very abusive father who abandoned her and her mother and left my mom living above a gas station alone. And my mom had to kind of raise herself and the younger kids. So my mom had a hard life, and it always impressed me that she didn't succumb to the circumstances and said she turned that passion into helping others, and she became a social worker and helped women.

At the time, they called him battered women before we came up with the other term of domestic violence survivors. But when she turned 70, my mom didn't want a party. She wanted to open up a home for victims of domestic violence. And we found an old funeral home, kind of creepy. We went in there and turned that basement into an extraordinary place with the kids playroom. We built the bedrooms over, we all went in, and we painted and brought in flowers and paintings. And the third floor was a computer lab we created so women could have a chance to do job retraining. This was many, many years ago. But I'll never forget the look of the eyes of the children who first came to that shelter. Their eyes were hardened, they had not known love. They grew up in a home where it was not what it was supposed to be. It was not a wrap of a warm blanket of caring. It was pain and abuse and especially what they saw inflicted on their mothers.

But over time, the kid's eyes softened and they became part of our family and we took care of them for many, many years. And so when I come here Chris, it just brings back the memories of what one person can do and all the volunteers and the workers here, the difference they're making. So those children that we just saw will have a better shot at knoWing what real love is about, because they learned it here. And so, I am just so grateful to be here. And the kids who we saw today, they're born into a world in which they didn't decide where they're going to be. And they're going to be shaped by life itself. They're born in innocence and they come to a place like this. And maybe their moms have had a really tough life, obviously they would have. But are they going to become victims of those circumstances or are they going to rise up? And that question cannot be answered by these little kids we saw today, can only be answered by all of us. The parents who bring them here, who care about them deeply, who let them be cared for by Chris's incredible staff.

It's by the volunteers, it's the workers, it's also the role that government has in my opinion. A Mayor and a Governor can make a difference in their lives. And so we're the ones who can create the nurturing environment for them and end up in a situation where success is not the exception, but the expectation. And that's what today is all about. So I wanted to come here and see exactly what you do. I'm not surprised that I would feel this blanket of love everywhere. The women who are just playing with the little kids, I just want to stay and play with them all day, but obviously, I can't. But we've met some family members and I just want to talk about something that you're putting out here today, and I'll let Chris explain it in more detail. But they did a very in-depth study on what childcare, the lack of childcare means for a mom and how so many women, 80 percent of the women they surveyed said that finding an affording childcare either cost them their job - the lack of affordable childcare costs in their job forced them to work reduced hours or refuse a promotion.

And what happens when you can't take a job because you don't have child care? You could be in a place like this, thank God it's here, right? But I'm sure it's not what people set out in life to do is to raise their family in a shelter like this. And so you see that as a driver, a causation factor on why we have so many women in places like this raising their kids here. And thank God there are childcare places like this. But we talked about how the high cost of childcare is driving families out of our state. It's driving families out of jobs, driving moms out of their jobs because we have enough jobs here in the City. We have 700,000 open jobs across the State of New York. But if you don't have someone to take care of your children, it doesn't work. And that is the foundational premise behind needing childcare. You want to go to a job to support yourself and your families. And so it's society's responsibility, governance responsibility, businesses responsibility as well to step up and to help families overcome those barriers. And I've spoken about my experience enough, what it was like without having child care.

But I do know this at the time when I was having our children many years ago, the thought was that's your problem. You decide to have kids, you figure it out. So there was never any thought that anybody else would help with that scenario, that the businesses, your employers didn't feel any responsibility to the employees they had or governments certainly did not at the time either. So that is the evolution of where we are today. We have a more enlightened government and government leaders who understand the difference we can make. So maybe there'll be fewer moms needing a place like Win. Maybe fewer moms wouldn't have to come here if they had child care and could have a job that could support themselves and also building the housing they need. So these are our shared goals that we're working on and focusing on here today.

So we've worked hard, I've been talking about childcare, universal childcare. We've invested over $8 billion over four years and a variety of ways to build up the infrastructure and the training and everything else we're needed - I'm proud of that. I'm proud we're able to launch this 2K program, which I think is just going to be life changing for families, extraordinary. And we're continuing this effort statewide as well. So I'm just here to say how grateful I am that there's places like this Chris, and I'll never take for granted what you have done and the lives that you've changed and everyone who cares so much about others. And that to me is what the embodiment of public services is that we think of others, not ourselves and do anything we can to lift them out of their circumstances and give them an easier shot in life. And how could you walk away from that little room of toddlers that we just did, and not say that it's our moral responsibility to give them the best shot in life? And that's what we're here to talk about here today.

So I want to thank everybody for this, and I want to thank our mayor for being the partner that we need to get us through these times and to give people hope, give them hope that they have been heard. And we understand the pain they're going through, and we're here to alleviate that in any way we can. Thank you, Mayor.

Contact the Governor's Press Office