Baltimore-area child care providers are feeling the loss of funding from the American Rescue Plan, a pandemic-era provision that expired on September 30.
Doug Lent, communications director for child care advocacy nonprofit Maryland Family Network, said use of the emergency stabilization funds were “very widespread.”
“Providers were able to use the funds for multiple purposes,” Lent said. “If they needed to invest in their employees, they could do that; if they needed to invest in their building, they could do that; or if they needed to pay their electric bill, they could do that, too.”
In a June report, The Century Foundation estimated that nearly 70 thousand Maryland children will lose access to child care without American Rescue Plan funding. Over 4,500 child care jobs are predicted to be lost – and nearly 2,500 programs projected to close.
But this trend isn’t new, Lent said. According to a report from the Maryland Family Network, many child care centers have shut down in the past five years.
The number of larger center-based programs slightly increased in 2022 – but are expected to fall by the end of 2023. Home-based programs dropped by 20% from 2011 to 2019.
“It was a downhill before it was a cliff,” Lent said. “And this cliff at the end of the hill is going to make it even worse.”
