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April 17, 2020

Amid failing demand, CT’s childcare industry has ‘sense of doom’

By Matt Pilon

When Connecticut closed its public schools six weeks ago, leaving parents, including those working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, to homeschool and watch their children at the same time, Rebecca Welsh figured daycare demand would skyrocket.
 
“I said ‘oh my god, people are going to be pounding on the door,’ ” said Welsh, who operates a licensed family childcare home in New Hartford. “It was literally the exact opposite. It’s crickets.”
 
Welsh, who previously had nine children from seven families in her care and a waiting list, is now down to one child who comes four days a week. Many former clients stopped paying immediately, some without even talking to her about it.
 
Some Connecticut childcare providers continue to experience sharp reductions in clients, even as an estimated 50% of Connecticut’s 4,000 daycare centers and homes, according to the Office of Early Childhood, have closed their doors.
 
OEC is trying to help. It has promised to keep paying subsidies to providers who care for children enrolled in low-income and head-start programs through the end of the fiscal year, including to programs with reduced enrollment and those that have temporarily closed.
 
OEC also recently launched weekly bonus payments, which will last until the end of May, for homes and centers that care for children whose parents are deemed essential workers during the crisis.
 
Separately, OEC has been using a $3 million donation from hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio to support the opening of daycare facilities near hospitals to care for the children of doctors, nurses and other staff.
 
For Welsh and others, it may not be enough.

"If this goes on for a couple more months, my family won’t be able to sustain this,” she said.
Her husband was recently laid off, and now they are pursuing a mortgage forbearance as well as unemployment benefits, federal stimulus money and an economic disaster loan.

Those things would all help, but as a sole proprietor, Welsh’s Paycheck Protection Program loan would be modestly sized -- just over $2,000.
 
“At this point, beggars can’t be choosers,” she said.
 
Laurie Wojnarowski has operated a family childcare home in Bristol for 23 years, weathering several recessions, but she’s never faced a situation like this.
 
“This right now is the worst ever,” said Wojnarowski, who like Welsh has seen her client volume fall from at-capacity to a single child. “I will go out of business if I don’t get kids to take care of.”
 
A survey of childcare providers last month by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that 25% of Connecticut providers would not survive closing for more than two weeks without significant public investment and support that would allow them to compensate and retain staff, pay rent, and cover other fixed costs.
 
Wojnarowski talks to fellow home-based providers, and said many of them are worried about accepting children from parents who work in healthcare settings where they could be exposed to COVID-19.
 
While it’s unclear how long it will take for things to return to normal, both Wojnarowski and Welsh worry about whether there might be a new normal for the daycare industry.
 
More companies are getting a crash course in having remote employees, and that may linger into the future.
 
“My fear is that the workforce is going to somehow move towards home-based employment after this,” Welsh said.
 
While there would still be demand for daycare, assuming parents are confident the coronavirus has been brought under control, Welsh is still worried.
 
“This can’t be sustained where kids are bouncing off the walls and parents are trying to work,” she said. “But I feel childcare needs are going to change after this. There’s a sense of doom, almost, about what is life going to look like?”
 
Wojnarowski is hoping that home-based childcare providers end up with more demand eventually, since they have small capacities compared to larger centers, but she too feels uncertain about the future.
 
"Are the jobs going to bounce back so we as providers have jobs?” she asked. “That’s the thing, and no one knows.”

 

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