The abrupt closure of an Ajax daycare in two weeks time has left more than a hundred families scrambling to find a new space for their children.
Happy Kids Child Care, located in the Church Street North and Delaney Drive area, has been instructed to vacate the building by Aug. 31 after its lease expired and was not renewed by the landlord.
" quite shocked," Browne said. "The past three months have been like so easy, knowing that our son is going there, that he's in good hands. And the staff are always so pleasant. You are just like rest assured that your kid is gonna be there and that they're gonna communicate with you if anything's going on.""This one really captured us.
"We might have to make really difficult decisions about whether or not the both of us can work," she said. "It is what we have to kind of figure out." Worried about the pending expiration in July, Gilchrist says she asked her landlord, Elm Capital Ajax Inc., in June if she could get a new lease that would see her rent go up to $18,000. She claims that in addition to the rent increase, her landlord wanted her first to pay the $40,000 debt she incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic in full before she could get a new lease.
She tried to negotiate with them again to keep the doors of the daycare open and presented them with a payment plan, but she says they would not budge. "I let them know the circumstances, I let them know everything. I just figured I was going to be fully 110 per cent transparent. So, people could just understand that I didn't do this to be malicious," Gilchrist said.Gilchrist says Happy Kids had just recently gone back to full capacity and for the first time since the pandemic hit, things feel normal at the daycare again.
Just like the other parents, Kristina Mojsoski was surprised by the announcement. Her two-year-old daughter is supposed to start at Happy Kids in September. She plans to return to work as a teacher next month but says she is unsure if that is still possible without childcare."I don't know what we're supposed to do. I need to go back to work," she said. "There's nobody to watch my daughter. I need to figure that out first. I just can't find a daycare just find one; you need to love it."