By Quincy Midthun
Childcare is the invisible backbone of a thriving city. When high-quality care is affordable and accessible, parents can go to work, businesses can grow, and children can thrive. But for so many Americans, this is not the reality. The lack of available care for infants and toddlers costs an estimated $122 billion in lost earnings, productivity, and revenue each year. Family budgets are being crushed by childcare costs, and childcare providers are operating on razor-thin margins, often with few or no benefits.
At the Mayors Innovation Project’s 2026 Winter Meeting, Mayors Arunan Arulampalam (Hartford, CT), Kelly Girtz (Athens, GA), and Sangeetha Rayapati (Moline, IL) and State Policy Analyst of Childcare Aware of America Diane Girouard led a discussion on strategies to create more childcare seats, reduce costs for families, improve the quality of care, and reduce barriers for starting and maintaining childcare businesses. Below is a brief summary of the session, including key takeaways.
Using the Bully Pulpit: Mayors as Conveners and Advocates
Decisions on childcare funding are often made at the state level, but Mayors are uniquely positioned to convene diverse stakeholders, including parents, schools, businesses, nonprofit leaders, medical professionals, first responders, and childcare providers to advocate for the necessary resources, funding, and policy to support childcare centers and informal, home-based providers. Building a network locally can help make the case to state and national lawmakers to fund and support childcare.
Speakers also emphasized the importance of connecting childcare to other community goals like public safety, affordability, and economic growth to bring attention to the issue. “I never have a conversation about public safety where I don’t talk about early learning… If you really want a safe community for the long term, you have to have well-resourced young people,” said Mayor Girtz.
Breaking Down the Barriers: Zoning and Transportation
Increasing the supply of childcare is essential for making it more accessible and affordable for families. To lessen costly, time-consuming burdens on providers, especially in-home care providers, local governments can amend their zoning codes to allow childcare operations in residential zones, prohibit HOA restrictions on childcare centers and in-home care providers, and reduce or waive parking requirements for childcare facilities.
Diane Girouard emphasized that transportation can limit access to childcare. She recommended that cities map out where their childcare facilities are in relation to transit routes and make modifications to improve access. Cities can also make transit more affordable for families by offering fare vouchers or discounted transit passes.
Maximizing Flexible Funds
In the wake of the pandemic, many cities used American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to stabilize their childcare workforce and to create more slots. While flexible federal funding is obviously declining, these programs provide replicable models for future funding or one-off, unique opportunities like settlement funding.
- With their ARPA dollars, Moline, IL launched a Forgivable Loan Program specifically designed to help providers maintain and create new childcare slots. The program created over 250 seats for Moline children, and all of the care centers funded by the program are still operating today.
- Iowa City, IA implemented a wage boost program with ARPA funds, providing a $2 per hour increase for childcare workers.
Utilizing existing space and being strategic with new space:
Building childcare space or retrofitting existing space to be a childcare facility can be extremely expensive. To bring costs down for providers, some cities are exploring how they can turn empty or blighted spaces into childcare ready buildings.
- In Hartford, CT, the local government is working to develop a blighted property to host an apprenticeship program that will train in-home childcare providers. The city is also working with its land bank to renovate blighted properties to provide space for childcare and housing. This approach allows providers to eventually own the properties they operate in, building both wealth and filling the childcare gap.
- Athens, GA is working with their schools to make use of vacant classrooms and is building a new community center that will be designed to accommodate childcare.
- Madison, WI, “gave away” a former fire station to a community college for $1, with the requirement that it be converted into a childcare facility. The facility now provides both care for students with children and allows early childhood education students to get hands-on experience.
Connecting the Dots: Building partnerships to achieve shared community goals
Every panelist emphasized that childcare has a wide range of stakeholders involved, and that finding solutions means finding the right messengers and champions. When solutions are found and invested in, the whole community can benefit.
- Sheboygan, WI recently opened its first 24/7 childcare facility, A Million Dreamz. To approve the center, the City partnered with many of its manufacturing firms who rely on second and third shift workers to grow their businesses.
- Moline, IL has partnered with Western Illinois University to support incumbent workers in early learning career pathways. Additionally, Moline public schools recently started an apprenticeship program to provide early childhood education certifications to high schoolers.
For resources from this panel, including the briefing book and slides, please visit the Winter Meeting webpage.