Overwhelmed Fairfax Shelter Temporarily Closes

[MountainLaurel]

As you read this article, keep in mind that this shelter is in a community where a 30-year-old, 1-bedroom condo with no special amenities is selling for about $260K.

One of Northern Virginia's only daytime homeless shelters has been so stretched by the number of people needing help this winter that the facility has closed for 48 hours while its staff determines its future, the shelter director said yesterday.

The Lamb Center, a daytime drop-in program operated by Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax City, has been coping with a sharp increase in the number of homeless people it has been serving. What began several years ago as a place for spiritual guidance and job counseling has evolved into a critical source of support for those without shelter in Fairfax.

This winter, 60 to 70 people, mostly single adult men, have been coming to the center every day for a meal, a shower, a telephone, washing machines and a gathering place for those taking late-afternoon buses to spend the night in one of the Fairfax churches participating in a program to keep the homeless off the street in cold weather.

That is roughly twice the number of previous years. And it has created an often crowded, sometimes chaotic scene at the small (less than 3,500 square feet) converted car radio repair store on Old Lee Highway near Fairfax Circle.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/06/AR2006030601701.html

[rodeodance]

1. whow -more of the Two Americas

[MountainLaurel]

2. No doubt

:cry:

[oscar111]

3. CLOSED? i cant agree with that step

even just two days.

seems the staff could find some better way to conferr amongst themselves.

reminds me of how our college student leaders went off for a junket of a long weekend at a conference center a hundred miles away.

Such elaborate conferring amongst a staff group, seem quite unnecessary and in the Fairfax case, brought extreme hardship upon the homeless.

The fairfaxers could have met several times, first for half an hour to sketch problems, then next day reconvened half an hour for solution ideas, then the next day again met for an hour to begin discussions... you get the idea.

services to the homeless would not suffer this way. All staff meetings could have been chat over the lunch hour meals. Not a beat missed in helping the hmless.