When the state of New Mexico announced it would provide no-cost universal child care last September, Yaneidy Gomez, a nurse, started thinking about starting her own program.
New Mexico made it easy: She applied for a child care license in March and by April had passed inspection and welcomed her first family, proving that a motivated provider can move quickly when states streamline the confusing maze of bureaucracy and paperwork.
Two things made the decision to swiftly open a home-based child care business possible: New Mexico’s newly expanded child care assistance program and her confidence that state support for home-based child care was here to stay.
Gomez had seen this world up close: first as a full-time caregiver for her own two children, and then through her sister-in-law’s home-based program. The experience taught her something important: Home-based child care is the backbone of America’s infant-toddler care system and is both under-recognized and in high demand.
Families choose home-based child care because it meets their needs and preferences. Providers may be their neighbors, speak their language or offer weekend or overnight care.
Related: Young children have unique needs and providing the right care can be a challenge. Our free early childhood education newsletter tracks the issues.
Nearly a third of infants and toddlers, the age group facing the most severe child care shortages, attend home-based care, compared with just 12 percent in centers. The availability of home-based child care matters most in rural and immigrant communities and is critical for parents working nontraditional shifts, like the oilfield jobs that drew Gomez, her sister-in-law and others in their Cuban immigrant community to Hobbs, New Mexico.
That’s why any serious plan to close the infant-toddler child care gap must include home-based care. And this care has been a focus of the supply-building efforts in New Mexico.
The good news for other states weighing their options is that closing this gap doesn’t require reinventing child care policy or making the kind of large, ongoing investment universal access requires. Two of the biggest barriers to home-based supply — low reimbursement rates and restrictive zoning — can be addressed with modest or no-cost approaches, and the gains reach every family in a community, not just those receiving child care assistance.
New Mexico has made enormous strides in dismantling both barriers: The state now offers reimbursement rates that are among the highest in the country for high-quality, home-based infant and toddler care — as much as $2,175 a month, a 58 percent increase from previous rates.
A provider serving six children in New Mexico can now bring in more than $100,000 a year — sustainable revenue and a living wage that restore dignity to a historically undervalued workforce.
Now turn to zoning. Local governments often slow or block child care supply-building by requiring nonresidential permits for home-based programs, saddling providers with legal fees and lengthy hearings — even where communities desperately need care.
New Mexico’s Senate Bill 96, effective July 1, requires that all licensed and registered child care homes be treated as residential, clearing roadblocks unrelated to the quality of care inside. It is a practical model any state can adopt.
The universal, cost-based reimbursement model and the zoning reform make recruiting and retaining providers like Gomez and her husband, an oilfield trucker who was ready for a change, possible.
Related: Lessons from the first state in the nation to offer universal child care
New Mexico’s promise of universal child care and its practical assistance to providers is already showing results. Since New Mexico announced universal child care a year ago, the state has licensed more than 70 additional home-based providers, creating more than 700 new child care slots.
Gomez is already setting her sights higher. She is familiarizing herself with a structured curriculum and setting goals to get her program accredited and elevate its star level — the state quality-rating metric that determines her reimbursement rate. She is personally pursuing an associate degree in early childhood education and hopes to grow her program into a licensed center within two years.
This is the kind of path to child care such policy choices were designed to enable, allowing an individual or family to build a livelihood while meeting the needs of their friends, neighbors and community.
New Mexico offers a blueprint for solving the infant-toddler care shortage. It is using thoughtful, community-first design, fair compensation tied to the real cost of care and zoning reform that enables stability and growth.
Child care works best when families get the care that meets their needs, whether it’s in a classroom setting or a neighbor’s living room.
So, here is a message to states across America: Pay the people who open their homes for the value of their work, then get out of their way.
Elizabeth Groginsky is the cabinet secretary for New Mexico’s Early Childhood Education and Care Department and leads the design and implementation of the nation’s first statewide universal child care program. Natalie Renew is the executive director of Home Grown, a national initiative focused on home-based child care.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about home-based child care was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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