Is the pandemic the tipping point needed to improve Sonoma County’s child care network?

“I feel desperate and hopeless,” she said. “I applied everywhere I could think of to get my kids in care, and I couldn't get any response from anyone.”

Her parents live nearby, but they have health issues and at most can contribute two days a week to help with child care.

“It doesn’t give me much time to earn a living, much less advance my career as I’d planned,” McCarthy said.

Before the pandemic, McCarthy worked full time as a designer for an architect, with ambition to become a licensed architect herself. However, with child care duties around the clock, on top of working, there’s no time to study for her architect license.

She lived in France for a decade before moving back to Santa Rosa in 2017. The support for working parents was different overseas, where child care was available for her eldest son four days a week.

Her monthly bill was only 23 euros (about $27 at that time). In comparison, monthly rates for full-time child care in Sonoma County range from $1,000 to $1,600.

“It's so cheap in France because it's subsidized,” McCarthy said about child care. “I don’t see how it could ever be affordable without being subsidized.”

The issue was addressed by President Joe Biden, who earlier this month signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The $1.9 trillion stimulus package also includes $39 billion earmarked for child care.

Local providers will benefit from the American Rescue Plan, although it’s unclear when the funds will arrive in Sonoma County or how much will be allocated, according to 4Cs Public Policy Director Lara Magnusdottir. The federal funds must be released to the states before being sent to counties and contractors.

California is expected to receive nearly $3.8 billion in child care assistance and stabilization funds, according to Williams, with the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment.

“The American Rescue Plan is an important step in delivering relief to child care programs, but we have to remember that California child care infrastructure was not stable before the pandemic,” she said.

Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins, a mother of three children, said she’s worried yet hopeful for local child care providers.

“I’m hopeful that the severity of the situation will be a call to action — and we’ll finally recognize how critical child care is to our workforce, and to our local economy,” Hopkins, who serves on the First 5 Sonoma County Commission, said in an email.

The near future for local child care depends on three steps, according to Dodson, 4Cs executive director: coronavirus vaccinations; loosening of occupancy limits once it’s safe to do so; and grants for providers, not loans.

Funding would make a difference at Storybook Village Preschool in Santa Rosa, where owner Nicole Monachello said a federal PPP loan was critical to staying afloat.

“If we were able to get government funding to help with the margin and help with expenses I would be able to lower the tuition for families, and I would be able to also increase payroll and pay teachers more what they deserve,” said Monachello, a single mother who has run the preschool for two years.

Monachello commended 4Cs for providing support but was critical of government officials’ pandemic guidance to stay open when there’s lower capacity, less income and more overhead. She described it as a “we need you but we don't care if you're OK” approach. “It is a lot of pressure,” she said.

Storybook Village emphasizes social learning and community building and has a waitlist of babies, toddlers and children in need of care.

“It makes me sad that some parents can’t go to certain programs because of that price tag for quality care, because all children need quality care,” she said.

Casey Schmidt, 40, has run Petaluma Village Preschool for 10 years and also managed to keep her facility afloat with a PPP loan. However, some of her fellow preschool owner operators have closed because of financial loss during the pandemic.

“With all the other schools closing and nowhere to put kids, everyone’s waiting lists are huge,” Schmidt said.

Following the 2017 wildfires, the Santa Rosa Metro Chamber partnered with local child care agencies to make the case from a business perspective that policy changes and investments are needed to develop and sustain child care centers.

Studies indicate that investment in early childhood education brings “a better return than the stock market,” according to Ananda Sweet, vice president of public policy and workforce development at the chamber.

Sweet said she’s hopeful for the future of child care in Sonoma County as there’s more interest from the state and federal government.

“The silver lining in this crisis when it comes to child care — as painful as it's been — is that there is a much broader, shared understanding of the need and what happens to your community when parents don't have access to child care,” Sweet said.