About 80,000 people work at the three military bases that make up Joint Base San Antonio. Together, the bases offer about 990 child care slots.
The wait for a seat at Joint Base San Antonio childcare centers can be months, forcing some parents have to opt for childcare across the city.Nicole Cox and her husband spend two hours a day taking their kids to day care across the city, because the child care facilities near where the military family works on Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph were full.
About 80,000 service members and civilians work at the three military bases that make up Joint Base San Antonio . Together, the military bases only offer about 990 child care slots. Another 135 slots are closed due to facility system upgrades, JBSA said. It’s an issue that reaches far beyond San Antonio. In Los Angeles, San Antonio transfer resident Coryn Millander put her son on the Los Angeles Air Force Base day care waitlist before he was born, when the wait at the time was about 11 months. When they finally needed day care, they only had to wait three weeks.
A new $46.6 million child care development center was authorized for construction at Fort Sam Houston in August 2023. JBSA said it expects a construction award for another $46.8 million center at Lackland in October, and another $46.6 million center at Randolph in September. From the start date, each project has a two-year construction period, JBSA said.