MassDevelopment

Businesses see new YMCA child care center as a boost to Cape Cod workforce


December 17, 2021 : Cape Cod Times, by Denise Coffey


HYANNIS — YMCA Cape Cod and the region’s business community are hopeful that an additional 65 child care slots will help get some of the Cape’s workforce back on the job. 

A 5,314-square-foot Hyannis Village Marketplace Early Education Center is slated to open in April 2022. The space is being renovated with a $1 million Early Education and Out of School Time Capital Fund Grant, a $350,000 loan from the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and an additional $350,000 in donations and contributions. 

Thomas Weber, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Coalition for Early Childhood Education, says employers across the state are concerned about the lack of available skilled labor in the workforce, a significant portion of whom are women.

“It’s further evidence that the fragile child care system has proven insufficient to the task of supporting much-needed skilled women in the labor market,” Weber said. 

The ultimate goal of the center, once staffing is in place and additional child care slots are available, is to help families get back to work, said YMCA Cape Cod President and CEO Stacie Peugh. 
Peugh has been with the YMCA in various capacities and at various locations for 31 years. What is unique about the YMCA on Cape Cod is that it is considered a destination YMCA in a tourist community.  

"That brings a different host of challenges,” Peugh said. “Extreme wealth and extreme poverty can exist. A service industry develops that supports the tourism. Housing becomes challenging.”

Child care needs vital to workforce development 

Reliable, quality child care, which has always been hard to find, has been harder to find due to the pandemic. 

Weber calls these issues especially important for the Cape, where those needs are more considerable than average. "The local economy and its composition puts tension on the issues of affordability and the ability for providers to operate in a sustainable manner," he said 

It’s important that there is an increase in supply, he added.  

At the beginning of the pandemic, the Massachusetts Business Coalition surveyed employers statewide. Weber said that 76% of the respondents were concerned about the impact that disruptions in child care would have on women in the labor market.  

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“Boy, have their concerns been fully realized,” he said. “Reports last month indicate three million women left the U.S. labor market. That’s a staggering, staggering figure.” 

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, COVID-19 drove five million men and women out of the workforce in April 2020. In September of that same year, traditionally the start of the new school year, 863,000 women dropped out of the workforce compared to 168,000 men. 

The discrepancy doesn’t bode well for women’s long-term wage-earning abilities. And it doesn’t bode well for the Massachusetts economy if the trend isn’t fully reversed, Weber said.

Child care as an economic development tool

The lack of women in the labor market is impacting the bottom line of many Massachusetts employers, according to Weber. Providing access to high-quality early childhood education is good not only for child development, but as a workforce development strategy, he said.  

“That was the motivating factor for the creation of the Business Coalition for Early Childhood Education,” he said. “Business leaders have come to appreciate the essential value that child care provides to the overall economy.”  

The YMCA’s new child care center will join its seven other early education centers on the Cape serving 202 children. The Hyannis center will be open to a wide range of families, according to Peugh. She called the new child care center a blended funding-source location.

Some parents will pay the full fee. Some will have state income eligibility vouchers. Some will have Head Start and Early Head Start funding. Some will get YMCA scholarships. 

“No one gets turned away,” Peugh said. “And all children will receive the same level of care.” 

Laura Canter, executive vice president of finance programs for MassDevelopment, said the organization was happy to make the loan happen. 

“We appreciate and understand how important it is, and how hard it is, to find good-quality child care, even before COVID,” she said. “Projects that expand an existing program and add space for 65 additional children — we wanted to support it.” 

In the last fiscal year, MassDevelopment loaned and provided loan guarantees for $46,517,000 on 45 different projects, Canter said. 

Being a part of the community is important to the YMCA, Peugh said.

“Everything the Y does is in service to making people and communities thrive,” she said. “We can’t wait to open doors in April and continue to serve kids and families on the Cape.”