With a 25-year history helping to create, preserve and enhance 34,000 child care spaces across San Francisco, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) strongly supports Mayor Daniel Lurie’s new Family Opportunity Agenda. A cornerstone of this landmark economic empowerment initiative is the commitment that children under age 5 will have access to no- or reduced-cost child care, making San Francisco one the first cities in the nation to confront the affordability crisis with such a comprehensive early care and education (ECE) initiative. Families can expect to save up to tens of thousands of dollars a year in child care costs. Under the mayor’s proposal, a family of four earning less than $230,000 a year (150% of area median income) will qualify for free child care, while those earning up to $310,000 a year (200% of area median income) will receive a 50% subsidy.
LIIF has been a longtime partner of the City and County of San Francisco, with our organization bringing capital, policy expertise, advisory services and capacity-building resources to expand and sustain the supply of quality, licensed child care. Through funding from the Department of Early Childhood, successes have included the San Francisco Child Care Facilities Fund (CCFF), which since 1998 has provided $117 million in critical facilities-improvement grants managed by LIIF; the San Francisco Nature Play Champions Program, a cross-sector collaborative that ensures children and youth in this dense city have opportunities to play, learn and grow in newly created outdoor nature spaces; and the Family Child Care Acquisition Program, a groundbreaking pilot that offers $100,000 down payment grants so in-home providers can purchase the spaces where they operate.
Additionally, LIIF invests in affordable housing, which aligns with another major part of Mayor Lurie’s Family Opportunity Agenda. We know that child care and housing are the two highest costs for families, especially lower-income households. That is why we seek to meet the daily needs of families by prioritizing co-location of ECE spaces in affordable housing, with our having invested $25 million in such San Francisco co-location efforts.
All told, LIIF is proud to have invested $200 million in child care and affordable housing in San Francisco. Our work is focused on the mayor’s broader ambition to create affordability and to revitalize downtown. We look forward to collaborating with City leaders to realize Mayor Lurie’s stated goal of “making San Francisco a place where families can stay, grow and build their future.”
With a 25-year history helping to create, preserve and enhance 34,000 child care spaces across San Francisco, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) strongly supports Mayor Daniel Lurie’s new Family Opportunity Agenda.