Lack of adequate child care affects a large portion of San Diego residents. Approximately 190,000 children under 12 in San Diego have no stay-at-home parent or available childcare service. Measure H would give the City Manager the power to permit childcare activities at recreation facilities on park property owned by the city of San Diego.

The question of whether or not to create additional opportunities for childcare services should be an immediate yes.

There are many areas in San Diego classified as “childcare deserts”—areas where fewer than three childcare spots are available for every 10 children under age 6, according to the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

By allowing recreational facilities and city parklands to be converted into childcare centers, Measure H would allow countless families to receive the services they need where it would otherwise be absent.  

The fiscal impact statement for this measure states that there are already 42 recreational facilities throughout San Diego that could serve as 4-classroom childcare centers, along with additional locations that have yet to be assessed. Adding these centers would reduce these childcare deserts.

According to the San Diego Childcare Workforce, there were roughly 190,000 children under 12 who had two working parents in 2020 with no available childcare facilities. To add onto this, the number of these centers has been decreasing since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

San Diego has nearly 40,000 acres of parkland. It’s time to take action to improve the lives of children and their working parents by allowing for the conversion of a small portion of this land into these childcare facilities.