Linda Wimpey, chair of the Fairfax County Community Council on Homelessness, has long pushed for greater care and awareness of a largely invisible population in the nation’s most affluent county. There are about 1,800 homeless people in Fairfax, a number that has been slowly but steadily increasing in recent years.
How did you get involved in advocacy for the homeless?
My whole life has been a preparation for doing the kind of work I’ve done with homelessness. I went to college and did graduate work to become a teacher and taught school for a while, and was always drawn to the most difficult students in my class, and the ones who had the hardest time, and the ones who had little going for them.
Tell us a little about your own family background.
I come from a very uneducated family, very poverty-stricken. I always felt like, coming out of the poverty that I grew up in, that I have a vision for getting other people out of poverty and getting out of that situation. It’s the calling of my life. It’s what I was supposed to be doing.
Historically in Fairfax, what has worsened homelessness?
Long waiting list of people to get into affordable housing contributes to longer stays in transitional housing and longer stays in shelters. The income levels have not increased to support the rising housing costs. Certainly over a number of years we have de-institutionalized people with serious mental health problems and substance-abuse problems.
Are you worried the county’s funding crunch is going to prevent any substantive change this year?
I am an eternal optimist, and I believe this board of supervisors has the heart and mindset to move this process forward. I think they are very supportive, they believe what I’m hearing that Fairfax should be a place where everybody has a home.
