by Molly Parker, Capitol News Illinois, and Julia Rendleman for ProPublica, photography by Julia Rendleman for ProPublica

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. _A portion of the reporting in Alexander County is supported by funding from the Pulitzer Center. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Heather and Stephen Casner sat across from the loan officer in the fall of 2022, a stack of papers between them. The building they were trying to buy — a 21-room, one-story motel in rural Anna, Illinois — was overflowing with trash and would need a complete overhaul before they could reopen it as a child care center in a region where there were almost no such facilities. But after a long search, it was the best option they could find.

The Casners were about to sign the papers for a $600,000 loan, using their house as collateral and setting aside $200,000 from Stephen’s retirement to cover what the loan wouldn’t. It was a staggering sum in a southern Illinois town where the per capita income is about $25,000 — 40% below the national level. “I’ve never even seen that much money,” Heather said. “I wasn’t raised that way.”

But Heather, who grew up on a farm just up the road, channeled her late father’s philosophy: “My daddy always used to say he was going to just keep farming until the money runs out.”

With a firm handshake, they were the new owners of a 1950s relic, the Plaza Motel.

The clock on the project was already ticking: In order to survive financially, they’d need to start enrolling children within six months. They knew it would be tough, but they soon would be shocked by the magnitude of the challenges ahead.

Over the past decade, Illinois has lost nearly 4,300 licensed child care providers, a 33% decline. As a result, it has also lost nearly 38,000 licensed child care slots for kids, outpacing the rate at which the child population is shrinking.

In 2019, at the end of his first year in office, Gov. JB Pritzker acknowledged that child care providers in rural Illinois were closing at an “alarming rate” and promised to make Illinois the “best state in the nation for families raising young children.” In response, the state increased its payments to providers. But that funding had been slashed in previous years amid a state budget crisis, and the extra boost was too little, too late. When COVID-19 hit, those that were already fragile folded.

With increased state and federal funding, the closures have now slowed slightly, but Illinois has still lost roughly 1,300 providers since Pritzker took office.

Over several months, Capitol News Illinois spoke with more than 50 parents, employers and child care experts to understand how the child care crisis has reshaped their lives.

Jala Wilson, 25, works with adults with developmental disabilities and attends nursing school. She has struggled to find care for two children. Her older son has behavioral challenges and his public school can’t accommodate him full time. And for her younger son, she couldn’t find child care nearby: Before the Casners opened the Our World of Learning Child Development Center, she was driving 100 miles round trip each day for child care. She spent more than a year getting up at 5 a.m. to drop off her younger son before heading to her nursing classes in the opposite direction. At night, she did it all in reverse. “That was insane,” she said. “I’d pick them up by 5 p.m., cook dinner, get them in the bathtub and do homework after they go to bed. So I probably would stay up until about midnight.” Gas alone cost her $600 a month. “If OWL closed, honestly, I’d probably drop out of school.”

People who have sought to open new facilities say they’ve faced monumental difficulties, especially in rural areas where properties are scarce and often require costly repairs. Launching a child care center, even in rural areas, can cost upwards of $1 million, experts say. “We typically think about the cost of care as being much less in our rural communities, and I think that’s a false narrative,” said Ariel Ford, a senior vice president with Child Care Aware of America, a national advocacy organization.

Adding to the difficulties in Illinois, prospective providers say they struggle to navigate a maze of complex requirements largely on their own, leading to delays in opening. They also point to regulations that are contradictory or outdated. One directs providers to place a blanket in every crib, even though the state prohibits using blankets to reduce the risk of SIDS. The state also directs providers to carry coins on walks so they can use a pay phone in an emergency, a relic Heather Casner called “ridiculous.”

Providers also say their applications can get stuck in limbo for weeks or months, with little explanation for the delays or news about when they’ll be licensed. The state’s own data supports this claim: For more than a third of applicants, the state misses its 90-day timeline to approve applications.

Part of the challenge is that the Illinois offices that oversee child care centers are severely short staffed, with a roughly 20% vacancy rate. On average, each state licensing representative is responsible for about 120 facilities, while the National Association for the Education of Young Children recommends a caseload of 50. “Is a rep with 150 cases........

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