Four years ago, Natalie Holland suddenly went from wife and stay-at-home mom to divorcee and single mom of an infant.

“I had no idea what I was going to do and had no plan, really,” Holland said.

She needed a job and she needed child care, but she was new to the Coachella Valley and had no friends or family to which to turn.

“There were not a lot of options for us,” she recalled. “I asked everyone I could at the CalWORKs office, ‘What do parents do that have tiny children?’”

Holland’s dilemma is one shared by families, here and nationwide, that find themselves living in a “child care desert” – any Census tract with more than 50 children under age 5 and either no providers, or so few options for child care that there are more than three times as many children as licensed care slots.

A 2016 study by the Center for American Progress looked at access to licensed child care and preschool programs in 22 states and found California has the highest number of residents – 62 percent – living in a child care desert. That includes much of the Coachella Valley, where Desert Hot Springs, La Quinta, Coachella and Mecca as well as much of Indio, chart the largest gap.

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Sixty-nine percent of California’s Hispanic/Latino population lives in a child care desert, and child care supply is especially low in rural California, where 64 percent of residents live in areas without enough licensed child care providers.

New York had the second highest rate at 61 percent.

For many families in the Coachella Valley, finding child care that fits their needs – and budgets – is a struggle, especially for those who may work non-traditional hours including night and weekend shifts, as many providers offer care Monday through Friday from early in the morning until 5 or 6 p.m. with holidays off. Those needing infant care are getting on wait lists as soon as they learn they are pregnant.

Many are also turning to Care.com which offers a list of nannies and baby-sitters in the area.

In Riverside County, there are 198,000 children 0-12 years old who are eligible for subsidized child care spaces but don’t have them.

Why?

“We don’t have enough spaces,” said Deborah Clark-Crews, executive director/local planning council coordinator for the Consortium for Early Learning services. “We do not have the services available for our kids who are eligible for them,” she said.

Child care providers suffered during the Great Recession when cash-strapped and unemployed parents started pulling their kids out of programs and federal and state funds were also cut, forcing many out of business.

“One of the biggest reasons we have disparity between child care providers and children needing care is that we do not reimburse providers at a rate that is sustainable to run a business,” said state Assemblyman Anthony Rendon, a former child care provider who in 2017 formed the Assembly Blue Ribbon Commission on Early Childhood Education.

“We are still trying to rebuild the current system and fund it at a level that works for children, providers and parents.”

Before the Great Recession, California provided slots for 460,000 children in need of subsidized care. Today, about 12 years after the recession ended, there is funding for 400,000, Rendon said.

Overall, funding for the subsidized child care and development system – including CalWORKs child care and non-CalWORKs and the state preschool program – was cut by about $965 million. If you adjust for inflation overall, funding dropped by nearly $1.5 billion, said Kristin Schumacher, senior policy analyst for the state Budget & Policy Center.

Much of that has since been restored, she said, but more is needed.

“Subsidized child care can help parents find and maintain employment because they are confident that their kids are in a safe environment that does not decimate the family’s bottom line,” Schumacher said.

Child care costs averaged $8,018 to $12,410 annually in Riverside County for infants and toddlers under 2 years old and $7,364 to $8,793 per year for preschoolers in 2014 – the latest statistics available – slightly below California’s average of $8,462 to $13,327 for infants and $7,850 to $9,106 for preschoolers, according to kidsdata.org.

The median family income for California was $77,359 in 2016 – about $6,297 higher than the national median.

“We know that only a fraction of children eligible for subsidized care can access services, but a comprehensive system that can serve all eligible children would save families from living on the edge of financial disaster and could even boost children and families’ well-being in the long term,” she said.

“Expanding our subsidized child care and development system to serve all eligible and interested families would come with a high price tag, but California has the fifth largest economy in the world. We can afford that,” she said.

A key complement to licensed child care centers are the licensed family child care homes – people who get licensed to care for eight to 14 children in their houses.

In California, anyone providing care and supervision to non-relative children from more than one family in their home or non-residential facility for periods of less than 24 hours needs a license from the state Department of Social Services.

Those operating without a license face a misdemeanor charge and are subject to a $200 per day fine.

But not all child care providers are created equal, be they at licensed child care centers or licensed in-home care.

Finding day care that fits parents' work schedules and other needs is often first priority.

“Here’s our issue, Mom and Dad need a place for the kids to go and, ‘Got a space, I’ll take it’” tends to be the response when there is such a shortage of providers, Clark-Crews said. “I can’t tell you that quality is the first thing they look at.”

Clark-Crews points to her own family's experience. She has an 18-year-old granddaughter with 6- and 8-year-old siblings. Their parents are blue-collar workers and their child care is more expensive than their rent, Clark-Crews said, and that’s only for before and after school – it’s not full-time child care.

So, the 18-year-old, who has graduated from high school, has deferred going to college so she can watch her younger siblings. Once they are in school full-time, her granddaughter will be able to take college classes in between dropping the younger siblings off and picking them up at school and taking on a part-time job, Clark-Crews said.

“When the recession hit, we had parents who were pulling their kids out of school regularly to stay home and watch their kids … and pulling their middle- and high school kids out of school early to watch their preschool children,” she said.

Many family child care programs had to close due to the loss of income, she said.

It’s changed as the economy has improved “but come one, it’s 2018 … where is the support for our kids? Where’s the quality care that these kids need to make sure they’re ready for school?”

It’s not just on the parents, Clark-Crews said, but the community as a whole that needs to be involved in making sure there is quality child care available to all.

“They’re our kids,” she said.

Government assistance is available for those who qualify, based on family size and income. The state this year raised qualifying income levels and now a family of three with a monthly income of $4,502 or less, for example, can receive government assistance.

Tiffany and Mike Werner of La Quinta both work full-time – he as a general manager for a local Walgreens and she as a contract negotiator for the Air Force – and between them, they earn too much to qualify for assistance.

They pay just under $10,000 per year for their son, Matthew, 2, to attend Palm Valley Preschool where he has been going full-time since he was 18 months old.

“We’re kind of stuck in that zone where we don’t make so much money we could afford anything, but we make enough that we don’t qualify for any programs” such as reduced rates on utilities, she said.

Both have their bachelor’s and master’s degrees and student loans they are paying off as well.

“I understand now why there are so many stay-at-home moms,” she said.

While she works from home, an agreement with her employer prevents her from keeping one or both kids home with her full-time, because of the distractions they can cause, she said.

“It’s stressful. We have really great jobs and we have a good income but having two kids so close in age” makes it difficult financially, she said.

“We try to cut back where we can,” she said. “My parents are wonderful, they buy the kids a lot of their clothes, so that helps a lot,” she said.

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To enroll Madison in Palm Valley’s infant care program would cost $13,000 per school-year – $17,220 year-round – so the Werners decided to hold off on enrolling her until next year, when she reaches toddler age and it will cost what it does to send Matthew.

In the meantime, Madison goes to the home of a family friend who babysits her two and-a half days a week for $500 per month.

When Madison starts going to preschool next year, having both kids at Palm Valley will double the cost to $2,000 per month – about $400 per month less than their house payment.

It also helps that Palm Valley allows monthly tuition payments, Werner said.

The school is one of a few offering a year-round program, including summer session and holiday breaks, for another $4,000-plus per child, an option they've declined.

“We found an in-home day care (Just Like Family) … just down the street in Palm Desert,” Werner said, where Matthew goes on holidays and summer breaks.

“That helps. And then my mom … during the summer can help as well,” said Werner, who grew up in the valley and is a Palm Valley alum. “That was one of the big draws moving here, to be close to family so family could help.”

The Werners explored other options for day care/preschool but had a bad experience with an in-home provider when Matthew, at 11 months old, got sick and wound up in the emergency room, she said.

“We looked into having an au pair, but we really didn’t want someone living with us and it comes out to be pretty close in cost,” she said.

Center for American Progress in 2017 published an article, “Blueprint for Childcare Reform,” by Katie Hamm, vice president for Early Childhood Policy at CAP, and Julie Kashen, policy director at Make It Work campaign, a three-year nationwide grassroots effort to improve workplace issues, including child care availability and cost.

The report outlined a “progressive vision for child care reform” that would guarantee financial assistance up to 7 percent of income on a sliding scale for middle- and low-income families with children 12 years or younger and children with disabilities up to 18 years old.

Since then, two pieces of federal legislation have been introduced in Congress but both remain in limbo.

The Child Care for Working Families Act, HR 3773, was introduced by Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott of Virginia, in September 2017 and is waiting to be heard by the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The bill amends the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 1990 and the Head Start Act with numerous changes, including capping what low- to moderate-income families pay for child care to no more than 7 percent of their household income.

No hearing date has been set for the bill.

HR 5401, the Child Care Responsible Employers – or Child CARE – Act, authored by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, was introduced in March and would require that when contracting out for labor, priority be given to companies with on-site child care for their employees.

Just 11 percent of all civilian workers in the United States receive child care assistance through their employer and of that, 7 percent have access to on- or near-worksite child care, Scott said in the bill’s introduction.

“Yet, employers and employees report that on-site child care provides the highest perceived value for both families and businesses of any form of employer-provided assistance,” Scott said.

HR 5401 is in the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and, like HR 3773, is not likely to see further action during this Congressional year.

In its 2016 report on child care deserts, Center for American Progress found that in California the working moms labor force was 2.9 percentage points lower than in neighborhoods with adequate licensed child care.

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“I think it’s critical that the state look at how it could continue to increase some type of subsidy to both the businesses and the programs … to be able to ensure that these children get a good, quality education from the beginning,” Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat from Coachella, said.

“I think that is done by working with our business community. Making sure that we can tailor programs to their needs and the needs of the working parents. That’s fundamentally important,” he said, but doing so without adding to the economic burdens of employers.

Given families’ circumstances, whether children are enrolled in preschool – which is not mandatory to start kindergarten in California – is dependent on whether the family can afford it, he said.

“We know how valuable these programs are to low- and very-low-income families, particularly families of color, because … when these children go into their first year of public education (without preschool) they’ve already fallen behind way before they’ve even started,” Garcia said.

“So, investing, of course, to these regions and populations is extremely critical,” Garcia said.

By 2019, Assemblyman Rendon hopes that his blue-ribbon commission will have some recommendations regarding affordability and access to child care and help shape future policy and funding decisions.

College of the Desert’s McCarthy Child Development & Training Center serves two functions: Educating future providers and offering hands-on experience for students and child care services to students like Holland.

The center is the lab portion of the early childhood education program at COD – so if taking classes to become a preschool teacher, child care provider or elementary school teacher, the center gives students hands-on training opportunities, said Dianne Russom, director of the school’s Childhood Development Center.

Students do about 150 hours of practicum at the center, which also offers some part-time paid positions for student workers and helps with job placement.

The center has space for 89 children, ages 12 months to 5 years – 72 preschoolers and 15 infants/toddlers.

The program gives priority to children of students carrying at least 6 credits. Space permitting, children of faculty, staff and the community can also be enrolled.

Does this program help fill that gap in child care?

“Yes – as much as possible,” Russom said.

Two-thirds of parents that qualify for financial aid to pay for the child care have it fully covered, Russom said.

The remaining one-third pay a fee based on income and family size, ranging from $52 to $592 per month per family, she said, adding that having more than one child in the family doesn’t cost more.

Center hours are currently 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“We’re considering opening the program until 10 o’clock at night,” Russom said. “We have a small program right now, but we’re going to enlarge it and see … how it goes; what the response is and is it serving students? Because the priority for enrollment here is students.”

Children can be left all day so parents don’t have to pick them up when their classes are over, allowing them study time as well.

“So, while they’re in school, their child is here, and they can come over and visit and spend time with them, maybe eat lunch or tuck them in for a nap. It’s a win-win for them,” Russom said.

Parents must maintain at least a 2.0 GPA to keep their children at the center.

“So, it’s not a free-for-all,” Russom said. “If a parent has a bad semester and she can’t maintain her grade-point average, we’re going to help her out; get her some tutoring, see what she needs a … and we’ll give them an additional semester” to improve, Russom said.

“If they cannot be successful for two semesters, they run the risk of losing their child care – a huge motivation. Very rarely do we lose people” because their grades are low, she said.

Wellness checks are also part of the care offered.

Nursing students, like Holland, come to the center in the mornings to do health checks on the kids.

Holland discovered the McCarthy Child Development & Training Center, with its various classrooms and expansive outdoor play area, through CalWORKs – California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids.

“I needed to go back to school to find out what I wanted to do,” Holland said.

It allowed her to be a full-time nursing student while her daughter was being cared for in a clean and safe environment, said Holland who also holds one of the center’s paid part-time positions.

“Coming here, I feel like she’s been in baby Harvard. She’s learned so much,” Holland said. “My baby has grown up here.”

Desert Sun reporter Sherry Barkas covers Tourism and Families. She can be reached at sherry.barkas@thedesertsun.com or (760) 778-4694. Follow her on Twitter @TDSSherryBarkas