Operating a child care center was never a big money-maker in the best of times, but running one during a pandemic is basically like taking a bunch of money and setting it on fire.

Arlean Cole, who runs a child care center called Arlean’s Little Treasures out of her home in Harvest, Alabama, says she’s spending about $3,500 a month in overhead costs to stay open right now.

The ones coming in are the children of essential workers, and the rest are at home with parents who are teleworking and reluctant to send their kids to day care during a pandemic.

Indeed, the money in the HEROES Act, when combined with the $3.5 billion in grants that Congress tucked into the CARES Act back in March, amounts to more than the federal government typically spends on child care in a given year, said Rebecca Ullrich, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law And Policy who works on early childhood education.

Some child care providers have been able to get money through the Payment Protection Act, a small business loan program Congress established in March.