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An additional — and unknown — number of kids are dropped off every day at illegal daycares, where a person or people are caring for more than two unrelated children without licensing. Many parents who drop their children off at such facilities may believe, wrongly, that the facility is licensed. In 2017, an infant died in one such illegal facility in Vancouver.

While those who research and work in this area agree illegal daycares are a serious problem, it’s also difficult to know how large a problem it is. The government wouldn’t typically know about such illegal, unlicensed child care facilities unless they receive complaints from the public. And it can’t provide figures to show whether or not the number of complaints about unlicensed daycares is increasing.

In early May, The Vancouver Sun contacted Vancouver Coastal Health, the agency responsible for inspections of care facilities, to request the number of annual complaints for the last decade for unlicensed and licensed child care centres, and was directed to the B.C. Ministry of Health. A Ministry representative then told The Sun to direct the inquiry to the regional health authority.

The Sun spoke with representatives of B.C.’s five regional health authorities and made written requests for the number of complaints about child care centres. The Ministry of Health representative then requested four weeks to provide the numbers.

As of Friday, a full week past the deadline requested last month by the ministry, the Sun had not received that information.

Meanwhile, Deshpande and her husband are desperately trying to find a new child care provider before their current arrangement ends next month, she said. “Or I won’t be able to come to work on the first of August if we don’t have anything. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s not just about me, I know thousands of other people are going through the same thing,” she said. “It shouldn’t be. But it is.”

dfumano@postmedia.com

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