South Coast gets creative for child care

“To me this is about equity,” Family Engagement Director Arlae Alston said. “They deserve a place where they’re safe and learning and adults are responding to their needs in a safe and caring way.”

Providing that isn’t easy. 

For starters, child care is expensive. In the past, some offered child care at their homes at steeply discounted rates to ensure that anyone who needed child care could get it. Some were eventually deterred from doing so, because operating without an appropriate license — which can be difficult to obtain —can result in a fine.

Child care also takes space. While there were plenty of caring adults and lots of love, there wasn’t always a suitable place for children to play and move, especially for those who weren’t old enough for preschool. 

“It seems there are more babies popping up than people who can watch them,” said Linnea Hoffman, a farmers market manager and mother of two. “You always want the best care for your kid … but the most vulnerable and needy age was where there was no care.”

Safe, nurturing and affordable child care has long been a pressing need in the community.

“Every time you bring parents together, their thing is, ‘We need affordable, quality child care,’” Alston said. “We were like, ‘OK. We have all these engagement programs … How can we make this possible with the little that we have?’”

A steering committee of local mothers, including Hoffman, came together to discuss options.

At one time, a co-op model looked like Puente’s best bet to provide care for the community’s toddlers. 

The program launched in October 2016. Since then, Puente’s co-op has offered child care to eight students at a time. Hoffman said that the quality of care her son received there changed her expectations.

“It’s really special and child led. Anything Arlae touches is golden, and anyone that was a family in the co-op experienced this high-level way of how we work with children. The parents could start to expect a (sense of being) tuned into the kids. 

I hope that we can hold onto that and demand that as we go on.”

In the co-op arrangement, participating families receive free, high-quality child care. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come at a cost. Relatives from participating families are required to work one full day at the child care center, possibly meaning eight hours less pay from their jobs at ranches, farms, restaurants and other local spots. They’ve gotten creative to make it work.

“There’s nowhere I would have rather been, but to get that time off is always a struggle,” Hoffman said.

“We have grandparents, older siblings, aunties, because we understand it wouldn’t work if we are not that flexible,” Alston said. Switching to a state-licensed center will free them up. “By being a licensed care center, we don’t have to have (relatives) here.”

Child care is currently Puente’s most expensive program, with funding and other support patched together from different sources, including the Heising-Simons Foundation, San Mateo County Office of Education, First 5 San Mateo and La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District.

“In other programs, we could provide services to 100 people. With this one, we serve eight families,” Executive Director Rita Mancera said.

Mancera and Alston said that the investment in child care is worth it. Dedicating resources to child care now could pull down costs required for other services down the road. 

“We felt it was our responsibility to make sure that happened,” Mancera said.

The Puente team is undergoing the required permitting process, and updating its current site to make it appropriate for a state-licensed child care center. Updates will include new toilet, floor, kitchen, fencing and other facilities. 

State licensing will allow Puente’s child care program to increase from serving eight families to 12. With 20 children on the waitlist for child care at Puente, it’s a start.

Being a licensed center would also make it possible for low-income families to cover their child care expenses with vouchers from the state, which would result in reimbursement for Puente. Services not covered by the vouchers could be provided for by fees based on a sliding scale. 

“We’ll become more sustainable,” Mancera said.

“If we had that set up, there would be nothing better,” Hoffman said. “That was always the dream.”