Many parts of Massachusetts are an “access desert” when it comes to licensed child care, according to the Department of Early Education and Care. That access desert affects 70% of infants and 43% of toddlers in the Commonwealth. Affording child care is also a challenge—more than 30,000 children are currently on the waitlist for child care financial assistance. Massachusetts needs more and better child care services, and physical infrastructure is a part of the solution.
However, child care programs looking to expand often struggle to find high-quality facilities in communities they serve. They can also struggle to finance the creation or improvement of facilities. As a result, many programs operate out of aging, suboptimal spaces not designed for children.
Children’s Investment Fund (CIF) and CEDAC are working to change that. CIF focuses on financing development of high-quality child care environments and its partnership with CEDAC has led to several projects that co-locate affordable housing with child care facilities, formally called early care and education (ECE). This model is gaining traction at the state level. In March 2025, Governor Healey’s Inter Agency Early Education and Child Care Task Force released a report that included two related recommendations for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities to encourage co-location.
This summer, CIF and CEDAC utilized their networks to survey affordable housing developers on this topic. They also hosted a focus group with developers in September to solicit feedback on the opportunity for new child care spaces to be developed alongside affordable housing.
Preliminary Results
The affordable housing developers who provided feedback generally support co-location of housing and ECE. Eight developers are already doing this work or have created such sites in the past, but most of them are concentrated in the Boston metro area.
The following opportunities were articulated by affordable housing developers:
– ECE is a community benefit to tenants and neighborhood residents. It provides a much-needed service.
– ECE is a good option for filling commercial space in buildings. Several developers noted recent volatility in retail and other businesses that typically fill commercial spaces. ECE has the potential to be a stable tenant.
Potential challenges include:
– The need for capital resources to support the build-out of an ECE space, which is something neither ECE operators nor affordable housing developers typically have access to.
– The challenge of identifying the right child care operator as a partner, and one that can commit to a long-term lease. Developing new affordable housing typically requires a long-term commitment from commercial tenants.
– The need for predevelopment and planning support for both affordable housing developers and ECE providers for this type of collaboration.
– Site considerations for a child care site, which include adequate outdoor play space and traffic circulation for pick up/drop off.
Almost all the responding developers expressed interest in learning more. CIF and CEDAC are part of a working group under the Inter Agency Task Force initiative. Other areas of further exploration include gathering data on current ECE programs in public housing, identifying potential policy changes that could incentivize more co-location projects, and hosting a webinar for developers to share more information about successful projects.
As Massachusetts invests in creating new affordable homes, developers and child care providers should ensure that ECE facilities are part of these projects. There is much still to learn and real potential to help families across the Commonwealth.
