Falls Church Shelters Feel Regional Trend in
Shortage of Beds and Resources for Homeless
By Darien Bates
Falls Church News-Press
January 5, 2006
On a Wednesday evening last month, as temperatures dropped
well below freezing, a dozen men ranging in ages from their
early 20s to middle age and older, gathered in the crowded
sleeping quarters at the Winter Emergency Homeless Shelter in
the City of Falls Church.
Earlier in the evening they had played cards and dined on a
supper supplied by volunteers from the Falls Church
community, but by the time the clock struck eight most were
already lying in bed. Some were asleep, aware that they would
have to be leaving by five the next morning, while others lay
chatting, watching T.V. and reading.
Most of them don’t fit the stereotype that many imagine
when they think of the homeless. They talked with each other
about the news and sports, and even their jobs, which many
would be going off to the next day.
It’s easy to believe homelessness isn’t a problem
in the City of Falls Church. You don’t see people
sleeping on the streets, something common in larger cities.
And yet this December the Falls Church Winter Emergency
Shelter opened its doors, as it has done every year for the
past 11 years. And once again it has been operating at near
capacity for the month.
Last year the Falls Church shelter gave refuge to 49 people
during the winter months, remaining almost completely full
during the coldest months of January and February. Meanwhile
they had to turn away another 46 because of lack of space.
Just down the road at the Bailey’s Crossroads Homeless
Shelter in Fairfax County the need is still greater. In 2004,
the most recent year for which statistics are available, the
shelter served 909 individuals, providing hot meals, a warm
bed and a selection of social services. The year before, it
had to turn away over 2,000 people.
In the summer of 2001 President Bush gave a speech pushing
for a new initiative to end chronic homelessness in the
United States. He laid out a plan that would create 150,000
permanent supportive housing units over 10 years.
But as 2006 begins, the plan has come up short each year in
meeting those goals, and the funding for that program along
with other preventative services has faced recent cuts.
Meanwhile, little improvement has been seen in the actual
state of homelessness across the U.S., chronic or temporary.
Throughout the Washington Metropolitan area, despite the
economic success of the region, homelessness is a growing
problem. According to a spot-in-time census done every year,
there were 11,419 homeless persons, 6,321 of which were
individuals and 5,098 were persons in families. These numbers
refer to the “literally homeless,” defined as those
who are either without any shelter or with only temporary or
precarious shelter.
This is an overall increase of 310 people from the year
before, all of that made up by the rise in the individual
homeless, which saw an increase of 434 persons.
There were also 4,020 persons counted as permanently
supported homeless, defined as those living in supportive
housing who are at risk of becoming homeless again because of
extreme poverty, or serious mental or physical disabilities.
Just this year, Fairfax County was identified as the
wealthiest jurisdiction in the United States with a median
household income of $90,937 and the City of Falls Church was
ranked sixth in the country at $80,571. And yet, despite this
wealth, the homeless population in Fairfax County and Falls
Church ranks higher in percentage of overall population than
all other Washington suburban jurisdictions except Alexandria
and Arlington.
Many of those people who qualify as homeless are not the
people many imagine them to be. The image of men huddled into
doorways suffering from serious addiction or mental
disability, the most visible part of the population, is
actually a small portion of the overall number.
In fact, a significant percentage of the homeless in Fairfax
County, especially families suffering from homelessness, are
employed and yet cannot afford housing.
In Fairfax County and the City of Falls Church, 34% of
homeless individuals are employed and 67% of homeless
families are supported by at least one person with a job. The
problem in Northern Virginia has been the dramatic increase
in cost of housing and the general stagnation in wages for
low paying jobs.
Ron Brousseau, chair of the Friends of the Falls Church
Winter Emergency Shelter, told the News-Press that about half
the people who end up at the Falls Church shelter actually
have paying jobs, but their jobs don’t pay enough to
afford a house in the area.
Nationally, while the unemployment rate was at just five
percent for the month of December, largely representative of
the 2005 employment rate, a significant portion of these jobs
are low paying. According to a study by the University of
California, Berkeley, the lowest paid third of the United
States labor force has actually seen its wages decrease for
three years in a row.
Meanwhile, real estate prices and the cost of rentals have
increased dramatically in the U.S. and especially in Northern
Virginia over that same time span. Despite recent evidence of
a slowing in the real estate market by the end of 2005, the
rise in housing prices for the year was still in double
digits.
It’s no secret that this is a very expensive area,”
said Melissa Arnold, assistant director for the Bailey’s
Crossroads shelter.
While the efforts continue to find solutions to the overall problem, on a day-to-day basis, Arnold at the Bailey’s shelter is just happy to be able to help people get off the streets when the weather gets cold. It can be depressing at times when the same people keep coming back, but she said it’s better than them just disappearing. “We’re happy to see them because at least we know they’re doing OK,” she said.