Day-care services here are struggling with falling demand, as people pull their children from centers and services located in homes because they are out of work.

"We've had a massive amount of calls from child cares starting about a month ago that they have a lot of openings," says Kathy Thamm, director of Child Care Resource & Referral, an agency here that's funded by a federal block grant. It works with the Washington state Department of Early Learning, and with child-care providers who operate licensed programs, either in-home or in a nonresidential setting here, Thamm says.

One Spokane day-care center, the North Monroe Learning Center, has about 15 fewer children enrolled this summer—the equivalent of a full classroom—compared with last year, though its companion site, the Valley Learning Center, in Spokane Valley, has had more consistent numbers, says Jill Rainey, the North Monroe center's director.

"We have lost a lot of enrollment due to families losing their jobs," in what Rainey describes as a slow trickle since about December. "Normally, by June the phone's ringing off the hook with people needing summer care for school-age children," but not this year, she says.

Marilyn Chapman, owner and operator of Shepherd's Christian Child Care, an in-home licensed day care in Spokane Valley, says she currently has only two children enrolled full-time, though she's licensed for up to 10.

"It's kind of a scary time," Chapman says. "This is my sole source of income."

Other day cares here say their numbers have not dropped dramatically, though they have seen some families either go to part-time only or have their children stay home with an older sibling during the summer.

"I know a few parents have been cut down to part time and reduced their hours (of child-care use)," says Allisyn Susens, assistant director of the Little Red Schoolhouse, located downtown on Sprague Avenue. She says she believes that center's location near the Spokane Transit Authority bus plaza and downtown businesses has helped it.

"We're full, but I know some others have had low enrollment," Susens says.

"We have seen a small decline, and that is because some families have lost jobs," says Rebecca Lee, director of Green Gable Children's Learning Centers here. She says it's not uncommon, however, for the numbers of children at the centers to be down a bit in the summer months. Green Gable's two centers also have seasonal dips in the summertime as some of their children are cared for by older siblings or schoolteacher parents during the summer months.

"If it's a two-parent family and one loses a job, they'll pull their child out of child care while they're in a job search and work it out with friends and relatives," Thamm says.

In-home licensed child-care providers often suffer the most because they take care of only a few children, so if a family with three children pulls out after a job loss, an in-home center can be left floundering, Thamm says. Such in-home centers account for the majority of the 575 licensed child-care providers in the Spokane area, she says. And centers such as the Learning Centers experience the same multiple effect, Rainey says.

"Unfortunately, sometimes when families leave they have more than one child. There could be a family of three (leave) one week and a family of two another week," she says.

"A lot of these places are just breaking even when they are at full capacity," and now many are struggling to keep their doors open, Thamm says. "They can't afford to carry too many months without being filled."

"If things don't pick up by August, I'm concerned that I will have to close after 20 years," Chapman says. "This is what I love to do."

Lee says the key for Green Gables also lies in potential fall enrollment, when it generally anticipates an uptick.

Meanwhile, struggling centers here reduce staff hours, or don't replace caregivers who leave, Rainey says.

"I had a teacher who quit due to pregnancy in January, and I didn't replace her position, and another who didn't show up for work one day, and I didn't fill her position," Rainey says. Even so, some staff members have voluntarily taken unpaid time off there so the center can avoid layoffs, she says.

Thamm says the agency's new Child Care Resource & Referral electronic directory, which it published on its Web site, at www.community-minded.org/family/, last month, is one way it's seeking to help the child-care providers it works with to market to potential clients.

"We go in and try to help them market their business when things are down," Thamm says. That can be a boon to small centers, such as North Monroe Learning Center, which typically don't have large advertising budgets.

"We haven't done more advertising—we haven't had to in the past," Rainey says.

Chapman says one of the first things she did when she knew she would have openings was to call the referral service to let them know, so they would refer families looking for child care in her geographical area.

Thamm has been presenting the directory to employers and at networking sessions to people seeking work through Spokane's WorkSource office. Parents can access the database of licensed providers online at the agency's Web site.

Thamm says a lot of people are looking to start in-home day-care services now, which she fears could hurt longtime providers here further.

"We have a lot of people who want to open a child care in a bad economy," often when they are out of work themselves, she says. For those individuals, Child Care Resource & Referral offers free market analysis and consultation services. "We have to be careful as these startups come to us, because we don't want to saturate the market as our long-standing child cares are struggling. We do have certain places, like the Valley, that are saturated," while other areas, such as East Central Spokane, have a dearth of care available for school-age children, she says.

Though state subsidies for child care haven't been dropped, as more families' incomes dip to a lower level, centers' revenues could be affected further, since state reimbursement rates fall below what day-care providers typically charge private-pay clients for child care, Thamm says.

Catholic Charities' St. Anne's Children & Family Center, which has space for 200 children, says that though it's programs still are full, requests for child care from families who receive state subsidies have increased while more private-pay families reduce their children's hours at the center.

Thamm says when such subsidized care increases, centers often struggle.

"I have centers that have 80 percent of their children on subsidies, but the subsidy doesn't pay the whole rate," Thamm says. "As these private-pay parents start dropping out because of job loss, that's a big loss. They need a mix to make it work."