When I became CEO of Austin Community Foundation in 2014, I would’ve been quite puzzled if you’d told me that one day I’d be writing an article about the importance of child care in our region. But, ten years later, a lot has changed.
Over the past decade, Travis County has faced a growing crisis in the availability of high-quality, affordable child care. A combination of rapid population growth, increasing costs for child-care providers, and teacher shortages has strained the system. According to the Texas Association for the Education of Young Children, the expiration of federal relief funds in 2023 has exacerbated financial challenges for providers, raising concerns about more closures in Austin and throughout the state. Additionally, public resources have not kept pace with the increased demand, leaving many families struggling to find accessible, affordable child care.
ACF is committed to closing the opportunity gap through investments in housing affordability and economic mobility. We know that accessible, affordable child care is crucial for economic mobility, allowing parents to join and remain in the workforce and pursue new job skills while contributing to a healthier business ecosystem. Equally as important, quality child care supports children’s development, promoting long-term success and helping families achieve financial stability.
To support these goals, ACF provides two grantmaking strategies: one focused on quality, affordable child care as an essential support for working families and the other on early childhood education as a key driver for long-term academic success. We’ve awarded over $1 million toward these goals since 2017.
Additionally, we released a report a few years ago to analyze this issue more thoroughly. The data was clear: child care in Central Texas is unaffordable and inaccessible for many families; the child-care workforce—mainly low-income women of color—is underpaid and overworked; slim profit margins for child-care providers make fair wages and quality programs difficult to deliver. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these issues and revealed how incredibly dependent our economy is on child care. When schools and child-care centers shut down, so did much of the workforce’s productivity.
This issue is also very personal to me. During my time at ACF, my wife and I welcomed two children, and we quickly realized just how essential child care is as we navigated decisions about who would care for them while we worked. Finding and managing care for two young children required careful planning, and we are incredibly grateful to the child care center staff and teachers who nurtured our children and prepared them for elementary school.
So, here we are, ten years later, with an opportunity to really do something about these issues. When it comes to our community’s most intractable problems, I often say that philanthropy can only complement, not replace, the public sector’s critical role in supporting much-needed solutions. This fall, voters in Travis County will have the chance to consider a ballot measure that directs more public resources to address our child-care crisis.
According to Affordable Child Care Now, Travis County Prop A will:
- Increase the availability and access to quality, affordable child care, afterschool, and summer programs for nearly 10,000 children and youth.
- Expand the operating hours of child-care programs to better accommodate working families’ schedules.
- Improve compensation for the child-care workers, the backbone of our local workforce.
This is a powerful opportunity to not only invest in families and their futures but also to support our workforce, expand our economy, and reach our community’s full potential. Travis County Prop A has been endorsed by numerous businesses, organizations, community leaders, and elected officials across the ideological spectrum. Before you head to the polls, I encourage you to learn more at Affordable Child Care Now.