Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 15, 1990 TAG: 9007150055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E11 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Graves, 46, a single mother with two children at home, is a school custodian who takes home about $600 a month. Despite help from a housing subsidy program, she still spends more than 65 percent of her income on rent for her sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment.
"It's all I can do to just keep up," Graves said. She said she stays in Arlington because she can't afford a deposit on an apartment in a less-expensive suburb and she wants her daughter, Tyna, 9, in Arlington's well-regarded school system.
Graves is among thousands of low- and middle-income Arlington workers who are struggling to keep up with soaring rents in the county, where redevelopment along the Metro mass transit corridors and rising land values have increased rents by nearly 42 percent since 1979.
During the same period, the median income for Arlington workers has risen by 7 percent, and thousands of lower-income workers have abandoned the county for less expensive areas of Northern Virginia such as southern Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties.
Arlington officials, fearing that a labor shortage in service industry and other blue-collar jobs could begin to damage the area's economy within a decade, are examining ways to stem the flow of workers from the county.
"It's a critical situation that isn't going away," said Arlington County Board Chairman Albert C. Eisenberg, noting that less than 16 percent of Arlington's labor force now lives in the county, compared with about 25 percent in 1980.
"If there aren't enough people around to fix things that need to be fixed and clean things that need to be cleaned, you've got a problem that reaches across the entire community," he said.
A recent study of Arlington's labor force by a panel of county business and community leaders said Arlington's shrinking supply of affordable housing is the largest factor in the county's labor shortage.
Ernst Volgenau, president of SRA Corp. and chairman of the panel, said the county should examine offering more incentives to builders and landlords to provide low-cost housing. He said businesses should be encouraged to help their employees pay for housing.
The panel also recommended that the county board appoint a labor force coordinator to deal with housing, transportation, day care and other problems that drive blue-collar workers from Arlington.
The board also is considering a proposed county housing policy that would set up a task force to help form partnerships among Arlington developers, businesses and nonprofit organizations to create more low-cost housing.
John Sharkey, 23, a department store clerk, decided not to wait for any changes. He gave up a $710-a-month apartment in the county to move to a larger, $550-a-month apartment in Manassas.
"I hated to leave Arlington, but I just had no choice. I don't know how some people there do it," he said.
Graves said she is determined to cope with Arlington's challenges while she fantasizes about buying a small home in the country.
"I still have my dreams," she said. "I can't ever let go of those."
by CNB