Wise isn’t the only one. Since early 2021, RAPID, a Stanford University-based project that collects information about young children and their caregivers, has been surveying early care and education providers about their experiences with housing. A quarter of all providers surveyed between March 2021 and December 2022 said they had difficulty paying housing expenses, whether they rented or owned their home. For home child care providers, whose homes are both the source of their livelihoods and the early learning environments for children, such responses are particularly alarming.

Build a second family

Wise, 56, immigrated to the United States from England in the 1980s. She bounced around the East Coast for a few years before moving in 1991 to San Mateo County, California, where she has lived ever since.

In 2003, Wise had three young children of her own. A few years later, she was going through a divorce and recovering from a serious illness.

She had worked with children throughout her career – from newborns to teenagers, in foster care programs, preschools and daycares. But amid the changes in her personal life, she was ready for something new. So when a friend asked if she would take care of her child, Wise said yes.

It was, according to Wise, the best decision she had ever made.

Soon after she started caring for her friend’s child, she found two other interested families. In 2009, recognizing the need for child care services in her community, she obtained a license to serve up to 14 children with an assistant so she could expand her home child care program.

Over the years, as she grew in confidence and forged stronger bonds with the families she served, Wise came to think of her child care program in San Mateo as a “second family.”

“It’s more personal,” Wise shares. “We do things together. You cross that line. There is a professional piece – a contract – but I could have their child for 10 hours a day.

Wise hosted barbecue potlucks and baby showers for his families. She attended sports games, school plays, and communions. Two years ago, the children’s parents threw him a surprise birthday party.

Several families have asked her to watch their eldest child overnight while the parents are in the hospital while the mother delivers a second baby – a request she says underlines the level of comfort between her and the families she serves.

“They are part of my family,” she says. “It’s a very special relationship.”

Enter and leave

The closeness and trust Wise has built with her families is evident each time she moves. Over the years, she says, she has never lost a single family when transitioning to a new home. Often it is just the opposite. They will help him find his next place, pack and move his belongings, and make minor repairs.

The first time Wise had to move out, the owners of her rental couldn’t afford to keep their house and needed her to leave. The second time around, Wise says, she thought she was in a hire-purchase deal, which was a big step towards her goal of owning a home, but the landlord ended up selling the house under her, forcing her to leave.

Wise lived in the third house for five years, until 2020. She had invested a lot of time and money into making it her own. She updated the landscaping and flooring, creating two separate yards to accommodate children of different ages. In total, she assumes she spent $30,000 on modifications and upgrades. The idea was that she – and her program – would be around for a long time. “I was hoping to own one day,” she says, adding that the owner was open to selling.

But then, in October 2020, his plans fell apart. Wise remembers waking up to the sound of gunshots. There was a shooting in front of his house. For several nights after that, shots rang out on the block. Wise remembers his street being littered with dozens and dozens of shells.

“It was a very dangerous situation,” she recalls.

Wise ended her childcare program for the week and decided to move out as soon as possible.

She called every property management company and every landlord she could find. The families in his program also got involved. All of the parents she served wrote letters of recommendation on her behalf. A relative, a real estate agent, stepped in to help.

Wise quickly found a home. Her parents helped her pack her things and she moved out the following Saturday.

For a tenant hoping to run an in-home child care program from her home, this speed of success is virtually unheard of: The last time Wise was looking for a new place to rent, she says she had to visit 39 homes before someone finally said yes. Historically, she says, “When [the owners] learned what I did, they said, ‘No, no, no, no.’ I would tell them that I have rental insurance, liability insurance, etc. They don’t want to do it.

She adds, “People don’t want to rent to people who have child care. It’s very critical. People don’t understand. They think of 14 children screaming, everywhere, with a terrible level of noise. It’s really not that at all. »

So it felt like a small miracle when, in the fall of 2020, she found a home within days.

“We threw things in boxes and moved,” she recalls. “It was not a safe place. I didn’t know what else to do. I worked a lot on this house, but when it comes to safety and my family… I couldn’t consider staying.

For Wise, the team effort behind his move exemplifies the intimacy that characterizes home child care. If a parent has a late meeting at work, she tells him she’s happy to babysit a little later tonight. If the weather is bad, she tells them to take their time in traffic. And if she has to abruptly close her program and find a new place to live, they’ll be more than happy to step in to help her.

Search for stability

When Wise moved into the house she lives in today in 2020, her rent went up again.

She pays $4,500 a month for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, compared to $3,800 at her last place. “God forbid, I still have to move, what’s it going to be?” she asks, exasperated. That’s the price of living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She wants more stability. “I am not a spring hen. I’m getting old,” she recalled telling her landlord. But Wise reports that he’s not interested in selling to her, and he doesn’t want to promise that he’ll keep renting to her indefinitely.

Friends and family always encourage Wise to move to a cheaper neighborhood, a more affordable city. “But my clientele is here,” she explains. “I have 17 years of relationships here. I do not [have to] display.”

It would take nearly two hours to drive far enough to make a significant difference in her rent, she says. She would lose all the families she came to know and love. She would lose the chance to care for groups of siblings as she has done for so many others.

Her friends point out to her that she could start over, that she could find new families and rebuild in a new place.

Wise is not interested.

“It’s my community. This is my home,” she says of San Mateo. “I have lived here for thirty years. Go somewhere new and start over? It’s not something I want to do right now.”

But she recognizes that at any time, her landlord could raise her rent to a level beyond her means. (“A house down the street cost $5,300 a month, and it took my breath away,” she notes.) Or she could be told she has to move suddenly, as has happened so many times before.

“God, if I could take this house back, I would,” Wise said. “I don’t want to move anymore.”

Learn more about the housing challenges faced by home child care providers in part one of this series, and stay tuned for an overview of some emerging solutions in part three.