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Infant care shortage hits Pleasanton
As population grows and housing costs rise, so does the need for infant day care

by Rebecca Guyon

Before Pleasanton resident Maureen Hunter could go back to work full-time after having her second child, she had to find someone to care for her 16-month-old daughter. But when she started looking for infant care, she had no idea it was going to be so stressful.

"I found there was a huge demand for (infant care)," she said. "A lot of places were full or had waiting lists." Hunter looked at centers and interviewed day care providers, but found it wasn't so much that she was interviewing them as it was that they were interviewing her--since there were so many people vying for the one open spot. After about two weeks, Hunter had a lucky break when one of the day care providers she interviewed who was previously full had a family leave and Hunter snatched up the spot.

"I got their spot by chance," she said. "I was glad because, of the day care providers I interviewed, I liked her the most."

Hunter is not alone in her search for infant care. Earlier this year, the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network released a report on the state of child care in California. The report outlined several problems in the state, one of which is the lack of infant care--a problem that is affecting Pleasanton as well, according to Child Care Links, a nonprofit organization that coordinates child care services and runs state subsidy programs for parents and child care providers in the Tri-Valley.

With the increased numbers of parents who work full-time and the improved employment outlook in Pleasanton, the demand for infant care has grown as well, said Shauna Brown, child care community specialist and liaison with the city for Child Care Links. In 2002-2003, Child Care Links saw a drastic reduction in infant care demand, but, during this past year as parents who may have lost a job are now going back to work, the demand has skyrocketed, Brown said. The high cost of living in Pleasanton also adds to the demand as more families need to have both parents working in order to afford to live here, she added.

"The majority of parents who call for child care in general call for care while they are at work, and that percentage is very high for infant care, especially," Brown said. "When talking about preschool age students, there are more parents looking for child care for social enrichment, but with infants it's more so that they can work."

But the supply hasn't grown with the demand. In Pleasanton, there are 65 family child care providers--providers licensed to care for up to 14 children in their homes--who will accept infants in their day care. That may seem like a lot, but each provider is only allowed to take care of three infants at a time if they also care for school-age children and four if they take care of preschool age children. For licensing purposes, an infant is defined as children 0-2, preschool age is 2-5 and school-age is 6-14.

Parents also have the option of using child care centers that accept infants, of which there are four in Pleasanton, each with room for 40 infants. That means there are fewer than 200 infant care slots for the entire city, Brown said, adding that at least half of the four centers are full and so are most of the family care providers.

"Pleasanton has grown so much," said Maria Berkley, a licensed family care provider in Pleasanton who accepts infants in her facility. Berkley has been providing child care since 1990. "There's so much development, so many new residential areas, and what does that say? More families, more new families, more young families and more couples starting out. And that means more babies."

Also compounding the problem is that child care centers do not allow parents to bring their children part time, meaning that even if a family only needs part-time care, they'd still have to pay for full time. Family care providers may accept part-time infants and only charge the parents for the days the child is actually in care. Berkley said she allows parents to bring their infant once a week if that's their need and only charges them for that day. Even with accepting part-time infants, she is full.

While adding more family care providers may help ease the infant care demand, the fact that they are allowed to take care of so few infants at any given time means that adding more won't really address the problem, Brown said.

"I think more family care providers serving infants would help improve the situation, but, to really address the issue in any large scale capacity, there needs to be more centers for infants," Brown said. However, because of the high overhead costs of starting and running a center for infants, few people sign up for the job. That's why Brown thinks the best way to get a center for infants up and running is through a partnership between the private and public sector.

"Land is so expensive that, for an individual to start a program, it's very costly," she said. "That's why there will need to be either a nonprofit or public partnership to make it happen."