| Unemployed and underemployed women living in Santa Ana, California are benefiting from a Microenterprise Center for Child Care Providers established by Santa Ana College in the city's Empowerment Zone (EZ). The center is providing unemployed women, many of whom do not speak English, the training they need to establish family child care businesses. It also provides ongoing technical assistance in business management and child care, and the opportunity for trainees to interact with a peer group of other child care providers on a regular basis. After child care providers finish their training classes, they are eligible to receive small loans of $250-$5,000 to purchase business equipment and upgrade their homes to meet licensing requirements.
By training child care professionals, the Microenterprise Center for Child Care Providers is also providing the EZ's working families, many of whom are female-headed, with increased access to quality childcare so they can obtain and keep permanent jobs. The center is the first comprehensive effort to increase the number and quality of family child care providers in Santa Ana.
Santa Ana, located approximately 200 miles from the U.S./Mexican border, has changed in recent years from a predominantly agricultural region to a rapidly urbanizing metropolis. This change, plus an increase in the number and diversity of city residents, has added to the city's economic pressure. Santa Ana's EZ is 88 percent Hispanic and contains a severe pocket of poverty, many female-headed households, and increasing amounts of substandard housing.
Primary partners in establishing the Microenterprise Center for Child Care Providers include Children's Home Society of California, Micro Enterprise Loan Program of Orange County, Fullerton Community Bank, Orange County Small Business Development Center, City of Santa Ana Empowerment Zone Office, Delhi Community Center, Warwick Square/Foundation for Social Resources, Inc., Orange County Child Care Association, and the HUD Regional Office. Santa Ana College has leveraged more than $177,000 from a variety of sources to establish and operate the center.
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