"When people see what we do, they’re always amazed..."

If you doubt that the recession can smack an area as prosperous as Fairfax County, stand outside the Embry Rucker Community Shelter in Reston on a Wednesday afternoon.

Families are unloading station wagons that are crammed to the ceiling with possessions. Men are unfurling bedrolls. Mothers with toddlers are signing up for the waiting list.

There is literally no room at the inn, and there seldom is. The Rucker shelter, run by Reston Interfaith, a 40-year-old community service agency, has been full of displaced and homeless people since the recession started. There were 115 families on the waiting list in December.

“And within two miles of here, there are probably 50 people living in the woods,” says Kerrie Wilson, Reston Interfaith’s executive director. “Sometimes, in Fairfax, the poverty piece doesn’t resonate.”

Yet Reston Interfaith is very familiar with it. The agency specializes in housing aid in many forms—emergency shelter, advocacy, affordable housing initiatives and transitional housing programs. It has a fulltime staff of 95 and an annual budget of $5.6 million. United Way of the National Capital Area is a longtime supporter.

Demand for Reston Interfaith’s services has never been low, according to Wilson. But the big difference over the last 10 or 15 years is the population the agency serves.
“We were serving the traditional welfare population back then,” says Wilson.

Now, “Fairfax has 40 to 45 percent ethnic minority population. Hundreds of languages are spoken in our schools.” Immigrants, documented as well as undocumented, are a major part of Reston Interfaith’s picture.

Under Wilson’s leadership, Reston Interfaith has become much more than a transitional housing agency. Clients can search for jobs on a bank of computers in the Rucker Shelter’s lobby. Financial literacy classes are offered so residents can avoid over-the-top mortgages and shady credit card deals. Comprehensive health care services are offered, too.

The idea is to move people through Reston Interfaith, not allow them to be perpetual feeders at the trough. “No family in the world can sit around here all day and make any lasting progress,” Wilson said.

The housing foreclosure crisis has placed unusual demands on Reston Interfaith in the last two years, but the agency has met them. “Since October of 2009, we have kept 650 people from being homeless,” Wilson said.

Reston Interfaith was founded by six local religious institutions. Twenty religious institutions are now represented on its board. The agency works with any Fairfax County resident.

United Way support during the current fiscal year will be about $35,000, Wilson estimates. She would love to have more, and she would use any additional United Way donations to hire community-based case managers and beef up job training programs, she said.

“When people see what we do, they’re always amazed,” Wilson said.