Allison Criner-Brown and her husband faced an unexpected jolt last month when the D.C. day care they sent their 2-year-old to closed its doors amid the spreading coronavirus pandemic. They would suddenly have to balance having their two kids at home, while at the same time trying to do their jobs. That made them like many parents across the Washington region.

But the difficulties extended further than that. Faced with possible layoffs or hour reductions at the small nonprofit she works at, Criner-Brown knew she wouldn’t be able to keep paying tuition while the day care remained closed.

“We cannot afford to pay for day care, you know, going into even really for another month, if I may be facing a huge income loss,” she says. “Our family does not have the means to be supporting other people, especially when we’re looking at a dip in our own family’s income.”

Can providers survive closures?

Those types of widespread financial concerns aren’t just personal — they also intersect directly with the fate of child care providers across the region. Those providers survive on tuition payments, operate on slim profit margins and rarely have much money saved in the bank for rainy days. They have been forced to make wrenching decisions themselves about whether to ask parents to keep paying or lay off already underpaid staff — most of which are black and Latinx women.

Providers and their advocates worry that many won’t survive until normalcy — and the kids — return. And if normalcy returns, it’s unclear if the region’s child care system, already among the most expensive in the country, will come back at full capacity.

“We’re hearing from providers that they don’t know how they’re going to pay their own mortgage, their electric bills or their bills,”says Lynette Fraga, executive director of Child Care Aware of America. “As they move into the summer months, they are small businesses, and they’ll go into the red and they’re really concerned about how they are going to be able to stay afloat.”

An early March survey conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children found that 17 percent of child care providers said they would not survive a closure of any amount of time, 30 percent could make it through two weeks, and 16 percent could last a month. Only 11 percent of providers said they’d be able to make it through a lengthier closure.

CentroNía, which serves some 600 kids at four locations in D.C. and Maryland, finds itself in the latter group. It is tapping into its reserves to keep paying its staff. But director Mryna Peralta says the money can only last so long. Beyond payroll, Peralta says the center was on the hook for an estimated $200,000 in leasing and property tax payments at the end of March.

“The fact that we have a small reserve, it’s still keeping me up at night. And it’s keeping all of us up at night. I’m in constant contact with all my peers, both large providers and small providers. And each of us is, you know, looking down the road, are we going to be able to sustain ourselves during this closure and be able to reopen? Every one of us is facing that question.”

That includes Shirley Cox, who for nine years has run the Faces of Hope Child Care Center in Southeast D.C. “Not having the income is, you know, going to be a challenge moving forward and of course, it’s uncertain as to how long this is going to last. I think that’s the biggest worry,” she says.

Smaller operators have been forced to make difficult decisions about how to stretch what little money they have left. Do they ask parents to keep paying tuition? And if parents don’t pay, how soon will they have to lay off teachers? Carolina Esteva, director of the Kids’ Corner Day Care Center in Adams Morgan, explained in a message to parents last month that was the situation she found herself in.

“Unfortunately, because of lost revenue, we will be forced to lay off our teachers and staff at the end of our current pay period,” she wrote, referring to the March 28 pay period. “For those who are willing, we humbly ask that you consider making an April payment to Kids’ Corner to help cover [rent, utilities, and insurance]. Any additional funds received will be pooled and given to our hardworking teachers as a separation bonus.”

Elizabeth Buchanan, whose daughter is almost 2 years old, says parents at their Takoma D.C. day care have been talking to the center’s director and to each other to find ways to sustain the teachers staff through the pandemic. That could mean parents who are able to continue to pay their full tuition, while others contribute what they can.

“We’re working with her to try to figure out what her bottom-line expenses are, what’s the best way to keep everyone afloat and everyone’s families getting through this,” she says. “We want to make sure that our children’s teachers can weather the storm so that they can have good and decent lives during this time and can come back and teach our children when they’re done. And also that the woman who runs the center can cover her expenses through this time.”

Peralta says CentroNía has also been working with tuition-paying parents on a case-by-case basis. She adds that concerns around teachers being laid off are real — not just because of the immediate economic impact they may suffer, but also because they may not come back. Although the Washington region has some of the highest child care costs in the country, teachers on average only make minimum wage.

“It’s hard enough to get a core group of teachers and keep them and if we lose any of them, when it’s time to reopen, it just makes our lives that much more difficult,” she says.

Government response to cushion the blow

Local governments have started stepping up to help. Child care operators have been declared essential in D.C., so they can remain open if they choose. And the city has contracted with three operators to open six child care sites for first responders and other essential workers. Hanseul Kang, who runs the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, also says city officials decided to keep public money flowing to operators that serve low-income children — even if they are closed.

“We are continuing to extend all the subsidy payments,” she says. “And we have waived parent co-pays during this time and so we are paying the full reimbursement rate to our providers, even if they normally would have received a portion of it through a parent co-payment amount.”

There is also federal money being made available through the recovery package passed by Congress and signed by President Trump last month. But in a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser and lawmakers this week, the Under 3 D.C. coalition has asked for more local assistance to child care providers, including $5.6 million in monthly grants to help providers cover their expenses.

“Losing these care offerings would, in the short term, prevent parents from getting back to work and reinvigorating our economy and, in the long term, diminish our already limited supply of child care slots creating greater strains on affordability and accessibility, furthering displacement of young families,” said the coalition in its letter.

For Allison Criner-Brown, the current situation is challenging, both having to care for her kids and hope that her family finances remain stable. She ultimately decided to pull her daughter out of her day care, largely to avoid having to pay tuition if it were requested. But she takes some solace in the fact that the day care had a large number of children receiving subsidies, which means it will continue to receive at least some money while it’s closed.

“It’s a difficult position to be in, but also for some people like us, it’s very straightforward,” she says. “Everyone who’s salaried isn’t making six figures. We went ahead and had to make a choice.”

This story originally appeared on WAMU.