Residents of Fairfax County who make minimum wage could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week and still couldn’t afford to live in a one bedroom apartment due to high housing prices, said the chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors on Thursday.
That may be why 50 percent of the county’s approximately 1,500 homeless people have jobs but live in the woods, shelters or cars, said Sharon Bulova, speaking at a panel on poverty held at in Alexandria. Fairfax County has a population of 1.1 million with 60,000 people classified as living in poverty.
“They don’t make enough money to keep a roof over their heads,” she said. “Housing is expensive.”
She said the county works closely with its school system to ensure that students who live at the poverty level have a roof and food. Children have become the poorest age group in the country and it’s usually those who are being raised by single mothers who are the poorest, according to poverty experts who also spoke on the panel.
Other panelists were Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, and Peter Edelman, co-founder of the Children's Defense Fund. Panelists were interviewed by public television talk show host Tavis Smiley and author and educator Cornel West as part of Smiley and West's "Poverty Tour" to eight states.
“We are committed to ending homelessness as we know it,” Bulova said.
She recalled moving into a new neighborhood, going out for a run and stumbling across a homeless camp with three members that was “one mile from my new home. This was my neighbor and I needed to care about that.”
The county, which had a median household income of over $100,000 in 2009, now has an office specifically charged with preventing homelessness, she said. In 2009, Virginia had a median income of $59,330 and the United States, $50,221.
She added that the county’s faith community has been instrumental in raising awareness about the region’s homelessness issue. Churches, mosques and synagogues recently all participated in an organized anti-hypothermia program, raising awareness among their members.
In turn, it became a personal issue to those members who then “turned to the Fairfax government and said we want to address this” as a community, Bulova said.
“An impediment to our progress would be denial,” she said. “We have to acknowledge we have pockets of poverty.”
In Liberty,
It is a lie that people with families are minimum wage earners that are there for a long length of time. It is a constant moving segment of our economy that is the first rung of the ladder. The real problem is we have youth with no work,no skills,no experience,and no self-esteem to work towards a future other than dependency. Mrs. Bulova is fighting the wrong battle. Supporting the homeless is not a help for our community but a burden for all.
When are people in this County going to vote for people who understand that and stop electing people who want hard working people to carry the burden for everyone?
Most unskilled labor, young, older, legal, or illegal are hardly in the position to negotiate their wages. With the supply of labor plentiful, the law of supply and demand give the leverage to the hiring business. Of course skilled labor has greater negotiating power. I'm no liberal but I support minimum wage to defend against exploitation of labor.
We are reaching a point in our nation where the percentage of taxpayers who ride in the wagon are greater than the percentage of taxpayers who pull the wagon. Once people who pay little or no income tax outnumber those that pay, I will be able to accurately predict the outcome of every state, local, or federal election. Historically in the US, people tend to vote their self-interest.
The un-skilled would absolutely be able to negotiate if there wasn't a minimum wage. They would be able to drive wages down to a point it would be advantageous for an individual businessman to hire the lower skilled person and the unskilled get the experience and education that they need. An investment of there time. Money is second in consideration. Lower wages drive cost of goods and services down due to competition. That is a fact. The politicians choose to ignore.
No facts to support any of this ideological nonsense because Ayn was really a cult princess who never got over the bolshies taking her daddy's factory away which had financed her "daddy's prince" lifestyle. Bo ho. Dumbledore has more useful social, moral and economic insights.
Our Fairfax way of life depends on them.
To John Farrell I say, I don't see any rant but I do see a civil, polite exchange of ideas. If you have any ideas, why not share them instead of your emotional accusations. There are many models and theories to discuss so if you have some of your own, dive in! The name calling is not very useful.
Simply accurately identifying an ideology which you don't deny.
Especially when we remember that there are 717,000+ registered voters in Fairfax. The exclusionary housing policies of the County contribute to air pollution and traffic congestion by requiring our private sector administrative and retail employees to commute from long distance to provide the services we rely on. Those regressive policies also impose a time tax on those employees families.
Most homeowner associations that I know of are having a hard time collecting dues from their members because of the economy. As far as the political parties, how in the world would you ever tax that? The donations are not tax deductible,
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That's why I believe handouts breed more handouts, until there are more people taking than giving. It has never worked in any city, county, state, or country anywhere, ever. Once we allow the free water well to dry up, these nomads will move away, and our communities will be better for it.
Your story is what we should be hearing not all this bleeding heart stuff. If you are willing to work hard and you are honest, you should be able to make your way in this Country.