Supervisors OK Check of 1,000 Households : Survey Will Assess Child Care Needs

A thousand households in Orange County’s growing unincorporated areas will be surveyed by telephone this summer to determine their child care needs.

The survey, which was unanimously approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, will be a follow-up to a study completed earlier this year. The earlier study showed that 23,900 children, or about 41% of those in unincorporated areas, live in single-parent homes where the parent holds a job, or in homes where both parents hold jobs.

Both the survey and the study are part of a larger project undertaken by the board last fall. Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, whose 3rd District includes most of the fast-growing south county, said Tuesday that the project is intended to ensure that child care needs in the county are met.

“We’re not talking about government getting in the business of child care, but we do have to recognize the need and provide the incentives for private industry,” Vasquez said.

Child care facilities, he said, should be a component of all future commercial development in the county.

Among possibilities being explored by a task force created by the board, Vasquez said, are requiring developers to provide fees for child care programs before their projects can be approved, operating programs on surplus county land and parkland, and providing day care services for county employees who work in the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

Fees for child care programs have been required of several developers as part of development agreements with the county. Under the agreements, other “public benefits” such as help in financing road improvements and payment of fees for branch libraries and Sheriff’s Department substations, have also been required.

Leasing county land to private industry for day care facilities would eliminate what Vasquez called one of the biggest blocks to establishing child care facilities, the high cost of land.

Vasquez cited figures that show:

- Orange County has the largest child population in the state, although it is third in total population.

- Newborns have comprised more than two-thirds of the county’s new population over the past six years, increasing the population by an average of 34,000 annually.

- The number of children in the county is expected to increase by 17% over the next decade.

- Since 1970, the number of working women in Orange County has increased by 151%.

- In 1985, there was only one licensed after-school day care space for every 25 children in the county from ages 6 through 14.

- The average waiting time in the county to obtain licensed child care in private homes is two months; for licensed child care centers it is more than a year.