South of Market Child Care, Inc.

South of Market Child Care, Inc. (SOMACC) is a nonprofit agency that has been a strong presence and a highly-regarded institution in San Francisco’s South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood since our founding in 1970.  Known then as St. Patrick’s Child Care Center located on Clementina St., we began with a single classroom. From the beginning, we have focused on serving low-income, recent immigrant (Filipino, Asian and Latino) and homeless populations. 

The inception of the name South of Market Child Care, Inc. happened in the late 1980’s. SOMACC opened the Yerba Buena Gardens Child Development Center (YBG CDC) in 1998, which is our main facility, and we launched the South of Market Family Resource Center (SOMA FRC) in 1999 to expand our ability to address family health and well-being. Our site on Clementina St. was relocated in a low-income housing project on Natoma St. in 2006 and was named the Judith Baker Child Development Center (JB CDC). In 2014, SOMACC was presented with a unique opportunity to open a third site. We applied and after a highly competitive selection process, were chosen by low-income housing developer Mercy Housing California (MHC) and the San Francisco Office of Early Care and Education (SF-OECE) as the provider of the new child development center in the Transbay Project scheduled for completion in 2018. This opportunity will enable our agency to expand our early care and education, and family support services to more families and children in the SOMA community.

SOMACC is proud to be one of San Francisco’s leading child development and family resource centers, and our exemplary services have been recognized locally and nationally. The Mimi and Peter Haas Fund has named both of our child development centers as Model Child Development Centers, two of only seven so designated in the city. 

What started as a discrete program reaching 30 preschoolers has since grown to become a major early childhood education institution serving 130+ infants and young children, and hundreds of families each year.