Without an end to the federal government shutdown by Saturday, some 65,000 children and their families nationwide stand to lose Head Start early childcare and preschool services as soon as next week.
None are in the Chicago area, the Illinois Head Start Association says. A lone program in downstate Illinois could be impacted next month. Local families have a longer runway because budget years vary for recipients of Head Start grants.
But on Dec. 1, Head Start budgets could end for programs serving 6,300 children that are overseen by the city of Chicago and two other large social service organizations, the Carole Robertson Center and the Henry Booth House.
“I’m hoping that we can have some resolution prior to then,” said Lauri Morrison-Frichtl, executive director of the Illinois Head Start Association. “But it’s not looking good. There’s been no movement.”
Meanwhile though, she says, roughly the same families who use Head Start also likely receive grocery money through SNAP, another federal program facing a funding Nov. 1 cut-off because of the government shutdown.
“Even if Head Start does open, how are we going to support families with food security?” asked Morrison-Frichtl. “There’s all kinds of things that our families utilize within the system. Without all of that working, it puts families and children in jeopardy.”
The one Head Start program that could lose funding Nov. 1 is in rural Effingham, more than three hours south of Chicago. It serves 335 kids and employs 104 people over seven counties. A stopgap grant through the Illinois Association of Community Action Agency will provide funding to keep services going for about another week, Morrison-Frichtl said.
Head Start has been in the Trump administration’s crosshairs since before his inauguration. Though the program, designed to support both low-income children and their families too young for kindergarten, has long had bipartisan support, it was targeted for elimination in Project 2025. That’s the right-wing blueprint for how to scale back the government that the administration has been closely hewing to since January.
Earlier this year, the program that educates about 28,000 young children in Illinois experienced problems with accessing funding and threats to zero out its funding for 2026. Then the Trump administration abruptly proposed adding children’s immigration status to determine eligibility, changes which are temporarily halted in an ongoing lawsuit by Head Start groups and providers in Illinois and elsewhere.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which administers Head Start for some 750,000 young children nationwide, did not return messages seeking comment. The shutdown has furloughed all federal workers not classified as “essential.”