Bay Area Edition | December 2023

BY WESLEY GARDNER & JAMES T. NORMAN

Bay area has child care gap of about 3,000 seats, report nds

seats can be looked at from a couple dierent levels, Cochrane said. One is the infant care shortage itself, which is regulated by state law and can be “cost prohibitive,” Cochrane said. The second is the issue of child care more broadly. Many day care facilities were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic and didn’t open back up, Cochrane said.

about 3,200 child care spots. For Emmalee Cochrane, director of Primrose School of Clear Lake, the shortage primarily comes down to spaces for infants, which she said she receives calls on “almost daily.” While there is space for those 2 years old and older, those with infants could have to wait until July until they get a spot at her facility. The issues surrounding the number of available

Child care both in Texas and across the Greater Houston area is proving to be dicult for some families to nd, and in the Bay Area, there is a gap of a few thousand seats. In the Bay Area, which includes nine ZIP codes covering League City, Webster, Nassau Bay, Friendswood and Kemah, data from a July 2023 report from research and advocacy nonprot Children at Risk shows there is a shortage of

Zooming out

A closer look

Although there is a gap in child care for the Bay Area, in Texas, a third of all ZIP codes qualify as a child care desert, according to the report. This occurs when there are three times more children eligible for child care than there are seats available. Some work is going on at the state level to remedy the problem, Kofron said, but some measures, such as an additional $2.29 billion for early child care, have failed. Senate Bill 1145, passed earlier this year, will reduce property taxes owed by eligible child care providers. For Cochrane, she said alleviating the problem comes down to needing more centers. And while her facility isn’t in need of teachers, she knows many that are. “It can be hard to pay sta enough to recruit and retain them and keep tuition at an aord- able rate,” she said.

Greater Houston early child care availability and demand by ZIP code According to data provided by Children at Risk, the Greater Houston area has 45 ZIP codes that qualify as child care deserts, meaning there are at least three times more children eligible for child care services as there are available child care seats.

Of the nine ZIP codes covering the Bay Area, six do not have enough child care spots within them to meet the needs of the area. The issue of not enough centers is also a problem both in the area and across the state. Prior to the pandemic, there were about 17,000 early child care centers. That number fell to 12,000 in 2021 and has since rebounded to about 14,000 in 2022, said Kim Kofron, director of early childhood education at Children at Risk.

Child care seats available

Zip code

Eligible children

77084 77094 77345 77355 77375 77382 77521 77365 77477

2,660 None

5,705

440 918

23

264 938 338 728 482

1,240 3,110 1,419 3,291 1,791

77058 77598 77565 77586 77089 77059 77546 77062 77573

Child care spots Additional spots needed

138

990

SOURCES: CHILDREN AT RISK, U.S. CENSUS BUREAUCOMMUNITY IMPACT

0 1K2K3K6K5K

SOURCE: CHILDREN AT RISKCOMMUNITY IMPACT

6640 South Shore Blvd., Suite 100 League City, TX 77573 713.852.6700 TexasBayCU.org

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