More protections for family child care providers under new CA law

Children’s Council is excited to share this great news from our partners and neighbors, the Child Care Law Center

Guest Blogger:
Julia Frudden, Director of Community Advocacy, Child Care Law Center

Family child care homes are a community asset – providing warm, enriching early care and education close to where families live. Yet there’s a critical shortage of family child care in California.

Because of gaps in the state law, family child care educators face unnecessary red tape that keeps them from caring for more children and causes routine discrimination by rental property owners.

That’s why we are thrilled that Governor Newsom recently signed SB 234, The Keeping Kids Close to Home Act (Skinner), which strengthens housing protections and eliminates burdensome zoning permit and business license requirements statewide for family child care providers.

Starting January 1, 2020, California cities and counties cannot require providers to get a zoning permit or business license to operate their large or small family child care homes. They also cannot create special rules that only apply to family child care homes.

We want all family child care educators to understand their rights under this new law. That’s why we partnered with Public Counsel to create this SB 234 Frequently Asked Questions, available in English, Spanish, Chinese and Russian.

In fact, we’ve already been hearing from family child care providers who have informed their local governments about the new law and got them to stop requiring zoning permits and business licenses now, instead of waiting until January 1, 2020.

We will be adding more resources to our SB 234 Resource Page as they come available. So, please check back to see what’s new.

And if you have questions about SB 234, call the Child Care Law Center at 415-558-8005 or fill out our online form.

The Child Care Law Center was the lead organizational sponsor of SB 234.