Observer Online | Focusing on Affordable Housing

Edition of April 27, 2007

Focusing on Affordable Housing

By Jackie Allder

Observer Staff Writer

From the Embry Rucker Community Shelter to the Apartments at North Point, affordable housing options exist in Reston for people with income levels varying from nothing to more than $100,000.

Yet if Fairfax County were to house all of its workforce—from retail employees to high-level executives—there would be a shortage of about 30,000 homes, according to Kerrie Wilson, CEO of Reston Interfaith. About half of these would be for people who are earning below the median income, which is more than $90,000, Wilson said during a meeting about affordable housing Thursday morning.

Reston Interfaith and the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance joined with other organizations to present "Affordable Housing Week: Celebrating Housing Choices as a Community Value in Northern Virginia," April 21 to 28, and Reston Interfaith hosted several informational sessions about and tours of local affordable housing options through the week.

In Reston, several condominium and apartment complexes offer affordable housing options, and Reston Interfaith also owns 36 townhouses that the group rents to people whose incomes range from $27,091 to $72,240. Fairfax County last year purchased Crescent Apartments’ 180 units in Reston and has worked with other communities, like Parc Reston, to acquire additional units for affordable housing programs.

But there are long waiting lists, sometimes for up to a year or longer, for the majority of these options. Wilson said that in Fairfax County there are about 10,000 families on the waiting list for Section 8 housing.

The public needs to get involved, Wilson said, and more people need to be educated about the range of people affected by the lack of affordable housing. According to Reston Interfaith, the annual income needed in Fairfax County in 2005 to rent an apartment was $45,000; to own a town home was $91,000; and to own a single-family home was $158,000. A video by NVAHA also reported that while the median income in the metropolitan area is more than $90,000, less than 5 percent of the area’s housing fits the price range of people who earn that amount.

"We have room in our community for everyone, and we need to make a commitment to housing," Wilson said.