Families and providers sound alarm over child care costs

Luis A. thought he had found the kind of child care every parent wants.

His two-year-old son attended a program several days a week through the Family Community Hub at Johnson Elementary, where Luis said his son received quality care and he learned to become a better parent. Then, he said, the program abruptly disappeared.

“Childcare is going to be just for those who can afford it,” Luis said.

Luis was one of about 40 parents, teachers and child care providers who gathered Saturday, Sept. 12, at Blossom House Early Learning Center in Denver. They were there to discuss rising costs and barriers to accessing care as part of a Childcare for All community meeting hosted by the city.

“It’s a wonderful program,” Luis said. “I don’t think I’d be the father I am today without that program, even in such a short amount of time. And then just from one day to the next, over the summer, they terminated it. I think we’re all really upset.” 

Now Luis’s son stays with his grandma every weekday since Luis has not been able to find an affordable and quality alternative. Luis said comparable programs have waitlists stretching two to three years.

His experience captured one side of a problem discussed throughout the meeting: Families are struggling to find affordable care, while providers say they are struggling to keep classrooms staffed and programs financially viable.

“We see small care providers closing down,” said Jacqueline Cradle, who co-owns Venture for Success Preparatory Learning Center in Montbello with Nathaniel Cradle. “You can only put in so many children into a classroom without having the funds. We are financing that on our teachers. And it’s not fair.” 

Nathaniel said the center has had to adjust spending as funding fluctuates. 

“We expand and contract based on the economic dealings,” Nathaniel said. “We’re very creative in how we finance. We write a lot of proposals for grants.” 

Rich Silvas, who operates four Denver child care centers, said adding providers alone will not solve the problem.

“The reality is the providers are there,” Silvas said, “but the government is not supporting them.”

While the Cradles run a nonprofit, Silvas’s businesses are for-profit. Silvas said taxes, fees and regulations make it increasingly difficult to operate and expand.

“The struggle is you want to open up more childcare centers,” Silvas said. “The ones that want to open up, you’re making it too difficult. There’s just so much red tape.”

The Cradles described a different funding problem: finding enough subsidized slots for families who cannot otherwise afford care.

“We had to fight tooth and nail for additional early head start slots,” Jaqueline said. “Back and forth for three months. We had families that were ready to go into those slots. Two of them were homeless. They could not get to work until they had care. We ended up eating the cost so that they could get to work.” 

Participants also discussed funding constraints affecting the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, which helps lower-income families pay for care.

“When you look at the data, we have 31,000 children under the age of four in Denver,” said Jess Ridgway, executive director of the Denver Office of Children’s Affairs. “And we have about 5,000 licensed slots for childcare. So that is a gap of 26,000 slots for children.” 

However, Ben Bloise and the people at his table said the number of licensed slots does not necessarily reveal how many additional spaces Denver actually needs.

“We think the city doesn’t really know how many slots it needs because there hasn’t been enough surveying,” Bloise said. “If we go out and build 21,000 new slots, it’s going to make the affordability crisis worse.” 

“All of our programs have slots sitting open because we are often located in some lower-income areas,” added AB Fast, who owns two childcare centers and sat at the same table as Bloise. 

Fast said the main concerns that were expressed at her table were affordability and access. 

“We’ve got folks paying $2,000 to $4,000 a month for their childcare,” Fast said. 

Fast also said families need different kinds of care.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all solutions,” Fast said. “We’ve invested everything we have into the programs that we built, and there’s concern that with declining enrollment in public schools, they might come in and open up early childhood programs right next to us and put us out of business.”

Participants proposed several ways to ease the pressure, including additional subsidies, property-tax relief and reconsidering regulations that providers said add to their costs.

According to a report by The Sum & Substance, more than 100 child care centers have closed in Colorado since January 2024. Providers at the meeting said addressing the problem will require action from local, state and federal officials.

“It’s Denver; it’s the state of Colorado, the federal government,” Silvas said. “It’s all of these put together. And then you have the economy. With that, our families are struggling to find care, and the most important thing is quality care. What’s really unfortunate is that centers that have quality care are closing or are on the brink of closing.”

There are more Childcare for All meetings coming up. The next two are at Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center at 3334 Holly St. on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 9:00 am to 11:00 am, and another one at the Cradle’s VFS Prep Center at 12900 Albrook Dr. on Wednesday, Sept. 23, from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Learn more here.

In addition to wanting more transparency about the closing of childcare centers, Luis also wants people in the government to make the best use of taxpayer money so that daycare centers have a better chance of staying open. 

“I’m very concerned about how people are making decisions about taxpayer money,” Luis said. “And how it affects our babies.”