Fairfax County supervisors on Monday adopted a handful of affordable-housing and anti-homelessness measures after a sometimes-bitter argument over how the county spends millions of dollars in a bare-bones fiscal atmosphere.
Monday’s debate signals a growing public divide between the board’s Democratic Chairman Gerry Connolly and its Republican minority over the scope of the county’s housing initiatives.
Sully Supervisor Michael Frey, the only one of the board’s two Republicans present during the debate, cast the lone dissent in votes that set up a small agency dedicated to ending homelessness, reaffirmed support of the county’s $23 million affordable-housing fund, and directed staff to create a plan for potentially using that fund to buy foreclosed homes and sell them to working families.
Despite the millions of dollars spent on acquiring apartment complexes and holding down their rents, Frey said the county has moved only 53 families off the waiting list — now more than 1,400 strong — since the “1-penny” affordable-housing fund was created in 2005. The failure to reduce the waiting lists significantly is due to the county’s practice of targeting dwellings that are already occupied.
Frey also questioned the county’s ability to support a broad “Implementation Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness,” part of which establishes the Officeto End Homelessness. The office will have an executive director, who would be hired in late summer under a proposed time line, and a small staff.
“It’s a blueprint for a plan, that if given unlimited resources, could prove successful,” Frey said. “As we know, we don’t have unlimited resources.”
Connolly, in his especially fiery response, elicited applause from advocates for the homeless in the audience.
“This isn’t a nice thing to do when we’re flush with money, that isn’t how this issue should be framed,” he said. “This is an investment in our fellow human beings, this is trying to put people back on their feet.”
The downturn in the housing market, coupled with reductions in state funding and federal interest rate cuts, have hurt county revenues significantly and prompted the county executive to deliver one of the most austere budgets in years.
