Disney World opened its doors to the public last week. Good news, maybe , for moneyed parents looking to entertain their children for a little while.

But for parents who need actual, consistent and secure places to bring their children, the news is far more grim. The child care centers that provide crucial support to workers with preschool-aged children are in trouble .

Without additional public funding, 40% of the child care centers in the U.S. say theyll be forced to permanently shutter because of the financial pressures of the coronavirus pandemic , according to a survey released Monday by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

The survey also found that half of the child care centers operated by minority business owners are at risk of closing permanently, yet another sign of how this crisis has been disproportionately hard on people of color.

Couple this with the uncertainty that surrounds the reopening of the nations K-12 schools and what you get is: a lot of parents who wont be able to get back to work particularly women who are typically saddled with primary caretaking responsibilities or who are single parents. In a recent survey from the University of Oregon, 47% of parents didnt know if they would be able to return to work because they didnt have appropriate child care.

This is devastating news for so many parents especially those who are losing out on income amid an economic crisis that is causing some families to go without food . Its terrible for working women. Its bad for companies who want employees back to work.

Its also a particularly bleak situation for children, said Phillip Fisher, who is leading a research project at the University of Oregon examining the effects of the pandemic on families with young children.

Theres a vast amount of important development that happens to children during the early years of life, he noted. And when children are exposed to chronic, toxic stress as when their parents are suffering from material, financial hardships it leads to fundamental changes in the way they develop. The consequences are long-reaching.

Fisher said circumstances are going to get worse, as some of the policies put in place to help families through the pandemics initial stages are set to expire, including a temporary moratorium on evictions and supplemental unemployment insurance. Both policies have been a valuable backstop for working parents with kids at home.

Many people are going to have to go back to work or risk losing their homes. And that means some kids are just going to be left home alone or with older siblings, an additional stressor for parents and children, Fisher said.

The reality that were not doing enough to buffer young children from the effects of stress right now is going to have consequences that play out over decades, he said.

This is a situation that hurts everyone in this country, added Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the CEO of MomsRising, a nonprofit advocacy group. The paid and unpaid work of raising children, of educating children, is often the invisible backdrop to what people think of as our regular economic activity in America. Now that were in a pandemic, we see that this work is at the core of our economy, our communities and our country.

Many centers are holding on about three-quarters of them in the U.S. are now open, according to the survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. But theyre dealing with reduced enrollment, as parents grapple with sending their children back into a group setting or have lost jobs that provided them the money to pay for such care.

The survey was conducted in June and 5,344 people working in center-based or in-home child care facilities responded.

One Center Reaches Its Breaking Point

After 30 years of working at and eventually owning a small child-care center in Worcester, Massachusetts, Bibi Nageer closed up shop in mid-June.

She tried to keep the business afloat after being forced to shut down when the pandemic first hit, but had little help. Back then, Nageer applied for a loan through the federal governments small business rescue program. But because she wasnt a regular client of local banks, she got pushed to the back of the line, she said. And, like many other minority business owners, ultimately never got a loan.

Nageer laid off her employees, but kept up with the overhead on the building paying utilities and rent. With no tuition fees coming in from parents, it was a struggle. And she reached a breaking point after hearing from many parents who werent sure when theyd start sending their kids back. Meanwhile, the guidance on how to safely operate kept changing, she said. And in the end, it was all too much.

It was a difficult decision to make, said Nageer, who started out at the center as a worker before buying the business in 2009. The work, she said, was never about the money.

Its a field that although we grow minds, our return takes a long time to show itself in the benefits children gained from the care, she said. And, she added, it doesnt seem to her like thats much appreciated by government officials at all levels in the way they support or make decisions about child care operators.

Funding Is Running Out

It didnt have to be this way. Child care providers and advocates have been forcefully pushing for help in keeping these businesses going for the entirety of this crisis. But to little avail. Congress put $3.5 billion in funding toward child care in the CARES Act passed in March. That helped some providers, others were able to tap the small business loan program created in CARES.

But since then proposals seeking more funding have gone nowhere. And that initial bit of funding is running out.

Even the most well-off providers are on the edge.