Conclusion

The problem facing nonprofit child care providers, as this center’s renovation experience demonstrates, is not that they are forced to rent low-cost basement space; it is the "as is" character of the space. Cubbies, small tables and chairs, and other materials and furnishings cannot adequately adapt a space for child care. The NSCAP Head Start center emerged metaphorically if not literally from the basement with an investment that converted raw space into a play environment clearly suited to children. This meant a serious investment in reconfiguring the space—tearing down some walls and building others, constructing new bathrooms with new fixtures, and redesigning the heating and ventilation system to meet the requirements of a child care program, to name just some of the frequently overlooked steps involved in transforming a building from one use to another.

NSCAP Head Start transformed this former high-school cafeteria through an admittedly hard-to-reproduce constellation of circumstances. First, the center had the leadership and vision of a strong-willed program director. Second, the parent organization, a well-established community action agency, was willing to commit to a long-term lease and to borrow $100,000 to renovate the center. Third, unlike many other types of subsidized child care. NSCAP’s center, as a Head Start program, benefited from start-up grants that covered a significant portion of the rehabilitation budget. Fourth, the center assembled an able group of development professionals who shared the director’s vision and who helped to transform the space. Finally, the center had access to a special-purpose lender able to provide critical technical assistance and prepared to extend credit to a nonprofit child care provider. These circumstances may be difficult to reproduce but not impossible.

More important, this center’s experience suggests the need for public policy and institutional reforms that will make it easier for providers to adapt space to accommodate quality child care programs. This means that funders need to grant funds to cover a portion of renovations costs in conjunction with child care loan funds, nonprofit facilities funds, and funds from other development lenders willing to provide technical assistance and extend credit to providers.

Government too must step up to the plate. The growing demand for child care and the potentially harmful impact of welfare reform on children create a compelling rationale for public-sector intervention to expand the supply and improve the quality of subsidized care by supporting capital investments in child care centers. The state of Connecticut recently did just that when it enacted the School Readiness law of 1997 and appropriated funds to allow the Department of Social Services to make facility-related loan payment for providers serving low-income families.

Finally, fees and reimbursement rates for subsidized child care ought to reflect the cost of operating in appropriately adapted child care space. Unimproved church basements just won’t do, especially after seeing a creatively adapted space like that of the Head Start center in Peabody.

The lesson, in short, is that space matters in child care. To deliver quality child care, providers need quality space as well as quality teachers and programs.