By Joey Safchik

A bipartisan bill, spearheaded by a San Diego congressman, would make child care more accessible for police officers.

For most families, finding child care is hardly as easy as A, B, C, but when a parent — or both — works a graveyard shift, that mission can feel impossible.

San Diego Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA 50), with support from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA 48), is pursuing legislation that would make child care more accessible for families in law enforcement.

Ten years ago, Jaqueline Gordanier was beginning her tenure as an officer with the San Diego Police Department, but that wasn't her only job title: She was also mom to two toddlers. Both are full-time gigs, neither a 9-5.

“It was extremely hard,” Gordanier said.

Finding child care with her odd hours was putting her to the test, especially once she became a single parent.

“I was really torn [about] leaving," Gordanier. "I thought about it every day, but the fact was: I loved my job."

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“It was extremely hard,” Gordanier said she was spending upward of $1,500 a month on child care, looking for babysitters who could work until past midnight.

“There were there were nights I went without food just to make sure that they had food, babysitter was paid, bills were paid, things like that,” Gordanier said.

While working her way up to detective, Gordanier was on the case, trying to help other parents on the police force. She joined forces with the Police Officers Association to get the ball rolling on a center specifically for kids of cops.

Now, San Diego boasts a first-in-the-nation child care facility with extended hours for the children of law enforcement officers. Its location is under wraps, for the safety of the children and their parents.

Peters wants to emulate the success of that center, which he calls a "brilliant idea," by doling out $3 million grants to departments across the country in a taxpayer-funded pilot program, money that could be used to build child care facilities for officers' kids or to subsidize the cost of care.

The Providing Child Care for Police Officers Act would allocate $24 million annually for the next five years. A portion of the funding is set aside for departments with fewer than 200 officers.

“It's gonna help the quality of your police force to have this child care backing those folks up as they do these really hard jobs,” said Peters, who also hopes it will help with recruitment, retention and making good on promises to put more women in uniform. “We wanna retain those police officers. Once we've invested in training them up, we want them to stay, and this is gonna really help. ”

For Gordanier, it did give her the chance to become Detective Gordanier and to have 18-month-old Chance. Her new husband is also a first responder with wonky hours.

“If I didn't have that child care right now, I'd be in the same position I was almost 10 years ago, thinking like, 'Now that I'm almost vested and I have all of these benefits, now I have to quit,” Gordanier said.