On November 21, 2018 — the day before Thanksgiving — I sent an email to the San Francisco Child Care Planning and Advisory Council (CPAC).

The subject line: “CPAC Ad Hoc on Access-Expansion — Vacancies study for FCC providers.”

The question was simple:

“Why now ONLY consider increasing capacity in the long term, but not helping providers to fill the current vacancy at this time?”

I had created a survey and sent it to approximately 200 providers. Sixty-five responded with identifiable information.

The results:

  • 64 San Francisco licensed providers
  • 54 ELS-eligible programs
  • 57 reported having openings
  • 118 infant and toddler vacancies

I asked CPAC, Early Learning SF, and SF3C to verify the data and present current vacancy numbers at the next meeting — so we could understand how many new slots were actually needed before committing to expansion.

That was 2018.

February 4, 2026

Eight years later, I watched the San Francisco Department of Early Childhood present its Prop C budget to the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee.

The proposal: expand childcare subsidies to families earning up to 200% of area median income — approximately $312,000 for a family of four — using the Prop C fund balance of $572.5 million.

Director Ingrid Mesquita presented the expansion plan. New infant and toddler spaces. Workforce investments. Capital projects. Four to six hundred new spaces per year.

Then Supervisor Stephen Sherrill asked a question that stopped me:

“There’s going to be an inherent tension as we look at spending down the capital… Should we build out a new site? Or should we give a family money to go to an existing site?”

He discovered that a significant number of licensed providers are not in the Early Learning for All (ELFA) system — he estimated around 200, but the actual number is far larger. He pressed: what does it take for an existing licensed provider to join? Director Mesquita described requirements — child development coursework, evaluations, an annual application process.

Sherrill pushed further: “This is not like a totally simple ‘contact us and you’re in.’ There’s a process.”

I was watching from home, thinking: This is my 2018 email. A supervisor is asking the same question I asked eight years ago.

The Numbers Haven’t Changed Direction

Days later, KQED reported that 700 children are waiting for care while approximately 1,000 spaces sit available in the system — a mismatch of location, schedule, and language preferences.

One provider trying to join ELFA discovered the process could take more than a year.

A parent told KQED: “They are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

At the same hearing, public commenter Mei Guo noted that many family child care providers have seen enrollment drops since the rollout of Universal Pre-K — providers with capacity, losing children to a system that isn’t sending families their way.

And Maria Jandres, a parent leader with Parent Voices SF, said what I was thinking:

“The system only includes about one third of existing providers… If we expand eligibility without expanding supply, families will qualify on paper, but there will still be no place to take the children.”

What My 2018 Survey Also Found

The vacancy numbers were only part of what the survey revealed.

I also asked providers whether they were familiar with the Early Learning SF system — the platform where they would report vacancies and accept referrals.

Familiarity with Early Learning SFProviders
Very familiar, can report vacancy and accept referrals20
Can log in but not familiar yet14
Completed training, have log-in info10
Not familiar with system, no log-in info21

Twenty-one out of sixty-five providers — 32% — couldn’t even access the system to report their openings.

The “shortage” wasn’t just a narrative problem. It was partly a system access problem. Providers had slots. They just couldn’t make those slots visible.

If you can’t report a vacancy, the vacancy doesn’t exist — not in the data, and not in the policy conversation.

The Bigger Picture: A System Contracting While It Expands

To understand why this question matters, look at the numbers I’ve been tracking through my own research (SF ECE Landscape 2025 dashboard):

San Francisco’s child care system is shrinking faster than the city can build it back.

MetricNumberContext
Children 0–5 in SF44,556Down 14.7% from 52,222 peak in 2017
Total licensed capacity30,496Down 1,217 spaces since 2023
DEC-enrolled children10,40023.3% of the 0–5 population
Family child care homes910Down 39 homes since 2023
FCC total capacity8,910280 large + 630 small homes
Waitlist738November 2025
DEC budget FY26$337M77% allocated to Early Learning

The Department of Early Childhood plans to add 600–700 new spaces per year. But the system lost 1,217 spaces between 2023 and 2025. It’s contracting faster than DEC can expand.

And here’s the detail that connects directly to my 2018 question. Using licensing data I’ve compiled into a facility-level dashboard, I can now see exactly how many providers are inside and outside the ELFA network:

In ELFANot in ELFATotal
Family Child Care homes368209577
Centers209358567
All facilities5775671,144

567 licensed facilities — almost exactly half the system — are not in ELFA.

That’s not 200. It’s 567.

When Director Mesquita told the Budget and Finance Committee that DEC covers “over 75% of infant and toddler care in the city,” half of all licensed facilities in San Francisco are outside the network that connects families to subsidized care. These are providers with capacity, with licenses in good standing, who could be serving families today.

The Structural Question

In 2018, CPAC was proposing to increase infant and toddler capacity based on data showing a shortage.

In 2026, the Department of Early Childhood is proposing to spend $574 million expanding the system — while 567 licensed facilities remain outside ELFA, the approval process takes over a year, and 1,000 spaces sit empty alongside 700 waiting families.

The question isn’t whether expansion is needed. It probably is.

The question is: Why does the system keep proposing to build new capacity before fully connecting families to the capacity that already exists?

This isn’t obstruction. It’s calibration.

And it matters because getting it wrong doesn’t just waste money. It destabilizes the providers who are already doing the work — the ones with openings they can’t fill through a system they can’t access, watching new programs get funded while their enrollment drops.

What I’ve Learned

I’ve been in this work long enough to understand something about institutions.

CCR&Rs are designed to support families and improve access. School districts are accountable to students. Public agencies answer to funders and policy frameworks.

If there’s a conflict between providers and families, most institutions will say they’re “neutral.” But structurally, their mission and funding are aligned with children and families — as they should be.

But who is structurally aligned with protecting family child care providers?

The association.

That realization is what brought me into this work in the first place. And it’s what keeps me asking the same question, as many times as it takes, until the system answers it.

The Ask — Then and Now

In 2018, I asked CPAC:

Can you verify current infant and toddler vacancies before recommending new capacity?

In 2026, I’d ask the Department of Early Childhood the same thing, updated:

  1. We know 567 licensed facilities are not in ELFA. What specifically prevents them from joining?
  2. What is the current vacancy count across all licensed family child care homes in San Francisco — not just ELFA sites?
  3. Can the approval timeline for existing licensed providers be shortened to under 90 days?
  4. Before building new sites, can we verify that existing capacity is fully utilized and visible in the system?

These aren’t hostile questions. They’re the same questions good fiscal stewardship demands — the same questions Supervisor Sherrill was asking, the same questions parents like Maria Jandres are asking, the same question I put in an email on November 21, 2018.

The system has had eight years to answer.

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