In the second half of 2025, Gertrudis Espinal watched, one by one, children leave the child care program she runs from her home in the Bronx. The city was running out of vouchers its families needed to pay for care, and by February it had only seven children enrolled, half the number from the previous year.
“We should focus on teaching kids right now,” Espinal said, rather than having to fight for funds. “It’s their future.”
In New York, most low-income families who use a child care voucher enroll their children in home-based programs. But these small programs are particularly vulnerable to economic shocks because they serve fewer children than child care programs and have less access to subsidies and resources than other child care services.
Some organizations are trying to contribute to various initiatives designed for home providers. Espinal is one of 50 child care providers in the Bronx who benefited from a guaranteed income pilot program called the Successful Suppliers Projecta national program run in six states by the nonprofit organization Grown at homewhich supports child care at home.
Starting in June 2024, Espinal received $1,000 per month, paid every two weeks for 18 months, which she could use without any restrictions. She used the funds to buy supplies, like books, paint and a sand and water sensory table for the children in her care, and paid utility bills, which she previously had to put on her credit card.
“It gave me some peace of mind,” Espinal said. “I have the money, so your mind is focused on what you need, (like) training and teaching these kids to build their skills and their foundation,” she said. “You have peace of mind, so you project a more peaceful and better environment for children. »
Educators and experts say this type of support, particularly programs that help raise employee wages, could be life-changing for providers and help stabilize a fragile sector.
“Home child care is still waiting for compensation that matches the true cost of care,” said Lara Kyriakou, senior policy director at All our parentsa nonprofit organization that supports home child care providers and has partnered with Home Grown to run the Bronx pilot program. “Educators truly care about being able to meet their own personal and family needs, as well as being able to meet the needs of their program and the children in their care.
Research by the Stanford University Early Childhood Center on successful providers shows that predictable funds allow early childhood educators to pay off debts and buy food; in some cases, it’s the difference between keeping their business open or closed. Child care revenue can fluctuate based on state enrollment, attendance and voucher policies, making reliable income more critical, experts say. With predictable funds, “you can just keep operating without any funding concerns,” Kyriakou said. This supports providers, but also allows for “continuity of care and a stable and nurturing environment” for children.
Elizabeth Olivo, a Bronx-based home-based provider who also participated in the Thriving Providers Project, said she used the stipends to purchase equipment and supplies essential to her program.
“Nearly all major operating expenses for my family child care program have increased, making it more difficult to maintain stability while continuing to provide quality care to families,” Olivo said via email. (Recent research shows that operating costs have increased for providers across the country, who in many cases pass these costs on to families.)
Olivo fears what will happen to the industry if the current status quo continues. “If these rising costs continue without additional support,” she said, “many family child care centers may struggle to stay open.”
Research shows even modest cash bonuses and benefit programs for providers in states like California and Virginia improving chronically low early educator retention rates. In the District of Columbia, which offered a wage supplement of $10,000 to $14,000 per year to home-based and center-based providers starting in 2022, research found employment in child care has increased by 7 percent in two years.
Child care advocates in New York also hope that 500 million dollars for child care that was included in a Senate budget proposal will be included in the final state budget. This money could provide additional compensation to child care providers to increase their chronically low wages. Nationally, their median wage is about $13 an hour.
Child care providers may need to continue to look to private initiatives like Thriving Providers, as well as support from cities and states, as opposed to the federal government. In early April, President Trump said “there is no way” the federal government would fund child care costs.
“We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of child care. You have to let a state take care of it, and they should pay for it, too,” Trump said.
However, in recent months, many states have begun cutting these funds, lengthening waitlists for families needing financial assistance and forcing programs to close. The District of Columbia Pay Equity Initiative is also risk of being eliminated.
For Espinal, his business is struggling again now that the payment program is over. As the children lost their vouchers and her enrollment declined, she had to let her assistants go. Once again, she worries about being able to pay her expenses.
“We really need more funding, not just in one project, but consistently,” she said. “Early childhood needs to be funded so we can thrive, so we don’t have to fight to thrive. »
This article about family child care was produced by The Hechinger Report, an independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequity and innovation in education. Subscribe to the Hechinger newsletter.
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