Can new law help day care log jams in NH?

When young New Hampshire families talk about their economic challenges, the need for more affordable day care is often voiced in the same breath as the need for more affordable housing.

“I don’t think there’s a more important conversation for New Hampshire right now, maybe with the exception of housing, another issue that we’ve got to address, that supports our workforce and our family needs more than child care,” said U.S. Rep. Christopher Pappas (D-CD1).

A new state law that went into effect in September could make day care more available in residential neighborhoods, and new apprenticeship programs could create pathways for increasing the number of day care jobs.

According to the most recent New Hampshire Statewide Housing Needs Assessment, the state currently needs around 23,500 housing units to meet demand, with an estimated need for nearly 90,000 new units by 2040 to fully satisfy housing needs across the state. It is a demand that’s been well documented and reported by the state’s media.

But the issue of affordable day care is equally as acute.

According to data from the Carsey School at UNH, the number of licensed child care providers serving children under age 5 dropped 13.1% between 2017 to 2024. The number of center-based providers declined 7.1%, and the number of home-based providers dropped 34.4%.

“We have between 16,000 — some months, 17,000 folks — on average out of the labor force because they’re caring for a child, not in school or in child care,” said Nicole Heller, senior policy analyst at the Fiscal Policy Institute.

According to the data, 71% of New Hampshire with children under 5 use child care. And the lack of child care options, coupled with the expense of day care, is keeping Granite Staters, especially women, out of the workforce. The institute said in its report that, when surveyed as to why they’re not working, 4.6% of respondents cited “caring for a child” as their reason.

She notes that the majority of those people are women. “Knowing that it may be affecting, in terms of money that the families have and our economy has, it may be in $670 million collectively that isn’t being earned by women who need to stay home because they can’t access child care,” said Heller.

Signed into law

The new law that seeks to address the home-based care shortfall comes from HB 1567, a product of the 2024 legislative session. It went into effect as signed law on Sept. 24 and says communities can no longer prohibit home-based child care in any home, whether single- or multifamily, and cannot require the special approval processes known as site plan review or special exception.

The new law comes on board as staff associated with the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas, in partnership with the state Community Development Finance Authority, discovered that 30% of New Hampshire children up to the age of 14 live in an area with little or no child care.

A survey of zoning regulations throughout the state shows that 81% of communities will need to adjust at least one childcare-related regulation in their zoning that is out of compliance with the new state law. This includes 55% of communities that have at least one district requiring special exception and/or site plan review for home-based child care.

“Our study was initially intended to simply help New Hampshire better understand the complex web of home-based child care regulations across the state, but the scope of the impact of HB 1567 on our communities was completely unexpected,” said Max Latona, executive director of the Saint Anselm College Office of Partnerships.

Latona oversees the NH Zoning Atlas Project, a database and interactive map that shows all zoning regulations through the entire state of New Hampshire. It was completed in May 2023 so that Granite Staters and policymakers can better understand local zoning laws and how they impact housing, transportation, the environment and other concerns, such as child care.

The Community Development Finance Authority, a partner in this day care study, invests in nonprofits, municipalities and businesses, including those that support child care.

“What’s exciting is that family child care is a really great opportunity for us to expand that access, because when you think about family-based child care providers, they’re really critical to providing equitable access to quality child care and choices for families,” said Melissa Latham, the authority’s director of communication and policy.

The new law, she added, “provides a really incredible opportunity for our communities to be responsive and a part of solving this barrier to access. We heard time and time again when talking to those who are providing support to family providers, as well as directly from family child care providers, that zoning is a key barrier that they face when trying to become licensed or licensed exempt in their communities.”

Home-based day care, for a variety of reasons, may be preferred over center-based day care for many people.

“When you think about family-based child care providers, they’re really critical to providing equitable access to quality child care and choices for families,” said Latham. “Those that might need culturally responsive or non-traditional child care support, family-based care is often their best option. For example, you’re a nurse or doctor walking into surgery, you’re not going to get to pick up your kids by 5:30, so you’re calling that family child care provider and saying, ‘Can we have some flexibility here?’”

The new law that opens the door to more home-based care was formulated by Jen Legere, founder and director of A Place to Grow, with the bill’s primary sponsor, state Rep. Chuck Grassie, D-Rochester.

Diverse child care needs

A Place to Grow — named by the U.S. Small Business Association as the NH Women Owned Business of the Year in 2022 — has franchised early childhood learning centers in Brentwood, Durham and Salem, as well as Wingate, North Carolina.

Two of the centers, Durham and Salem, started as family-based child care. Legere believes that family home-based care is a critical need in New Hampshire, particularly in rural areas.

“We don’t need big child care in rural settings,” said Legere. “So in order to really meet the diverse needs of the population in a state like New Hampshire, you just structurally need a diverse array of sizes.”

But in many areas, local zoning sets “too high of a threshold to bear,” according to Legere, who experienced it in Plaistow where she had a three-bedroom home in mind for a day care but was denied.

“It kind of brought the need to a head as we were looking at these setbacks from town planners and zoning,” she said.

Family child care, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has two components.

Family Child Care Home is a child care program operated in a home in which the provider resides. In a family child care home one provider may care for a maximum of six preschool children, plus up to three children who are enrolled in a full-day school program. The number of children younger than 36 months of age and 24 months of age that may be cared for is limited.

Family Group Child Care Home is a child care program operated in a home in which the provider resides and has one family child care worker or assistant. That home may care for seven to 12 preschool children, plus up to five children enrolled in a full-day school program. The number of children younger than 36 months of age that may be cared for is limited.

Family, home-based care is a great way to increase availability and get into the business of child care, according to Legere.

“They don’t need as much training, they don’t need as much money to start up. So their barriers of entry are much smaller,” said Legere. “If we’re going to grow child care capacity in New Hampshire, it’s a great place to start. You’re literally starting at home.”

On Oct. 21 at the Brentwood facility, Legere hosted Pappas, Heller, U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), acting U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Julie Su, and others for a roundtable discussion on child care issues in the state, with a focus on the department’s Early Childhood Registered Apprenticeship Program.

The program, a first in the nation for students in any of the state’s community colleges in their early childhood director program, provides up to $2,000 in federal scholarship funds and up to $1,500 for the cost of books, testing fees and background checks. The roundtable addressed both the need for day care, making it more affordable, and the need to better pay the caregivers.

“One of the crises is that it is both too expensive for people who need it and not enough good job quality for people who do the work,” said Su. “We can’t just be talking about bringing down the cost of child care without thinking about how to improve the quality of those jobs. We’ve seen this across the economy. When the jobs are better, you solve the job crisis by people wanting to do those jobs.”

The Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) offers the two-year ApprenticeshipNH program for early childhood directors. The formal application for federal approval was submitted in March 2024 and granted in July 2024. The program is specifically designed to help individuals with childhood education experience to develop their entrepreneurial and small business skills to own or manage child care facilities.

Shaheen said she knows the challenges of child care well, dating back to her years as governor starting in 1997.

“The challenges are the low pay and getting enough teachers who can be in centers, and helping parents with the cost of child care, which is very expensive, and in New England, we’re at the top of that cost curve,” said Shaheen, who chairs the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.

“So it’s been a challenge that I’ve worked on since I was governor,” Shaheen added. “I used to say my first child was born in 1974, my last child left home in 2004, and child care was always an issue for 30 years until the last one left home. So it’s a very real challenge.”