11-02-2025
St. Paul: Hallie Q. Brown Center shutters what may be state's oldest early learning program
Benny Roberts has a history with the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center that goes back generations. His grandparents brought home food from its food shelf. His mother attended child care in its early learning program, which he would go on to attend decades later, as well.
When Roberts became executive director of the Kent Street community center last July, he was determined to do what he could to keep the 96-year-old early learning program afloat. By his own admission, he failed.
'We tried many different things,' said Roberts, a former mental health worker and college career center director, who opened and closed the community center's doors each day, shoveled snow, helped man the front desk, served as his own executive assistant and oversaw the childcare program himself while searching in vain for a qualified lead teacher. 'We were critically understaffed for a while.'
The decision to shutter what's believed by some to be the state's oldest early learning program was not an easy one, but the child care component ceased to exist on Jan. 24. Before that date arrived, Roberts said he called each of the 18 enrolled families himself, back to back in an 'emotionally taxing' single sitting, to deliver the bad news and help them find alternative placements.
From its food shelf to its clothing closet and afterschool and senior programs, the work of the community center goes on, but residents of the historically Black neighborhood have lost access to a culturally-sensitive childcare provider at a time when infant and early learning placements are hard to find.
Talks are underway around a potential leasing arrangement with a for-profit provider based in North Minneapolis, though the earliest they would open an early learning program at the center would be May 1.
Some of the impacted parents were in attendance for a debriefing of sorts on Monday evening, when organizers with the statewide childcare collaborative Kids Count On Us held a roundtable speak-out at Hallie Q. Brown to discuss the state of the childcare industry.
Lydia Boerboom, a lead organizer with Kids Count On Us, said her organization was aware of at least six childcare centers across the state that had closed in the past year. Located on the St. Paul campus of St. Catherine University, the 93-year-old St. Kate's Early Childhood Center was permanently shuttered in May.
Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Minnesota was short nearly 80,000 child care slots, with many facilities – especially in Greater Minnesota – maintaining months-long waiting lists, according to surveys conducted by the national advocacy organization First Children's Finance. A yawning labor shortage has only exacerbated the problem since then. The state unemployment rate dropped to a historic low of 2.3% in 2022. It now sits around 3.3%.
The Hallie Q. Brown roundtable, which was attended by five state lawmakers, also drew nonprofit and for-profit providers, representatives of staffing agencies and others attached to the industry.
In quick succession, provider after provider discussed the difficulty of attracting and retaining quality educators. Most in attendance said they wanted to hire licensed teachers with a passion for instruction, not just babysitters pocketing a paycheck, but that required raising their rates and pricing out many middle class families. Even then, said more than one participant, they were unable to offer their workers basic benefits, including healthcare.
'The barriers to hiring are astronomical,' said Angela Kapp, who previously ran four St. Paul-area childcare centers under the banner The Learning Garden. 'I had four staff quit at the same time during COVID, not wanting to get vaccinated and wear masks.'
Kapp said she closed her Inver Grove Heights center and is transitioning two other sites in St. Paul to new owners. A fourth site, in Maplewood, is technically run by her daughter, 'but I'm there every day,' she said. 'We don't have enough staff. I can't just walk away.'
Understaffing in a childcare environment is no small concern. Last May, weeks before Roberts was hired, three pre-school children ran away from the Hallie Q. Brown Center and found their way to a neighboring school playground. State licensing authorities investigated the incident but did not issue a $1,400 fine until December.
At the state level, 'that's how backed up they are,' said Roberts, who described in detail in an open letter to the community how he had searched in vain for the right staff to lead the early learning program. 'What was certain was that people wanted to work. What was also true was that none of them were credentialed.'
The center was fined again in January for relying on staff that had not completed a required background study, according to Minnesota Department of Human Services licensing records.
Providers at Monday's roundtable also expressed frustration with eligibility requirements for the Minnesota Childcare Assistance Program, which is intended to help families with the cost of childcare but maintains what they described as prohibitive income limits of about $54,300 for a family of three and $64,700 for a family of four. Roundtable participants said those limits locked out many middle-class families unable to afford the cost of care.
'The way this whole system works, it just doesn't work,' said state Rep. Dave Pinto, DFL-St. Paul. 'You would never design this system from scratch.'
Providers also bemoaned the cost of opening new centers, which some said ran to about $500,000. That's money difficult to obtain from private lenders, given the industry's tight profit margins. Burnout is high enough that when private equity firms come calling established providers with offers to buy out their small companies, some have a hard time repeatedly saying no, they said.
Few saw better days ahead without a major infusion of state or federal dollars. Providers said they were nervous about potential cuts to federal block grant programs supporting state and county childcare assistance, which are up in the air. The Trump administration recently rescinded a memo that would have cut funding to Head Start, another early learning program, but dozens of Head Start programs in 23 states have reported they've been unable to draw down federal funds through their online portal.
State Rep. Samakab Hussein, DFL-St. Paul, noted that through its economic development division, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development made $6.5 million in grants available last year to bolster the state's childcare industry, followed by another $6.5 million this year. The money — up to $300,000 for a single-site project or $600,000 for a multi-site project — can be used in a variety of ways, from direct subsidies and financial incentives to retain workers, to training, licensing assistance and facility improvements.
Providers called that an important start, but still not enough to keep more centers from going under.
For the Hallie Q. Brown Center, there may yet be a silver lining on the horizon.
Since shuttering the early learning program, Roberts said he's been deep in talks with Olu's Beginnings, a for-profit childcare program based in North Minneapolis. Jessica Herod, chief operating officer of Olu's Beginnings, said she was in the process of getting the program licensed to move into the Hallie Q. Brown Center, hopefully by May 1, after some planned renovations.
'We want to bring a quality service back to the building,' Herod said.
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