Obstacles deter many child care providers from building, expanding facilities

After years of searching, a nonprofit hoping to open a new child care center for low-income infants and toddlers found a rent-free building inside a housing development for migrant workers. In some ways, it seemed like a perfect fit.

But it needed more than $500,000 in renovations — a cost so high that Go Kids Inc. abandoned the project and kept searching. The organization operates several child care centers in Santa Clara, San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, but staff want to open up more centers to meet the need for more subsidized child care.