Fairfax County to Finalize Site for Homeless Shelter by Year's End

One of the potential sites for the shelter would be co-located with a new Penn Daw fire station at the site of the former Hybla Valley Nursery.

by Susannah Moore

Jul. 01, 2021

10:05 a.m.

Photo by Susannah Moore for Alexandria Living Magazine

Dozens of community members attended a meeting on the proposed Penn Daw Fire Station and Emergency and Supportive Housing.

Dozens of community members showed up to a meeting this week with signs — and questions about safety and home values — related to the proposed co-location of a new emergency and supporting housing facility with a fire station.

Fairfax County officials hosted a community meeting on the proposed Penn Daw Fire Station and Emergency and Supportive Housing Tuesday evening at the former Hybla Valley Nursery at 2801 Beacon Hill Road, where officials are considering building the new fire station and shelter. Fairfax County purchased the 3.5 acre site in June 2020 with the intention of relocating the Penn Daw Fire Station there, which is in need of updating.

Concurrently, county officials were still looking for a new location for the Eleanor Kennedy Shelter, which was approved along with three other county shelters in the 2016 Human Services and Community Development Bond Referendum. The Kennedy shelter is currently located in a 100-year-old former pump station on land that belongs to Fort Belvoir. Site conditions make refurbishing and expanding the current shelter impossible.

Based on the size of the Hybla Valley Nursery site, officials proposed an idea to co-locate the shelter with the new fire station. The site was deemed an ideal spot for the shelter based on a number of criteria including the size of the site, proximity to public transport, services and job opportunities and its location as part of an existing community.

Image courtesy of Fairfax County

Mount Vernon Supervisor Dan Storck convened an advisory committee to evaluate the proposed co-location, which has met eight times since November 2020. Members of the committee include representatives from nearby communities, public safety representatives, faith community and affordable/emergency housing providers, the Mount Vernon Council of Citizens Association, the Mount Vernon Lee Chamber of Commerce, Fort Belvoir and county staff.

Opposition, Concerns from Some Residents

Quickly, opposition to the emergency shelter from some residents in the surrounding neighborhood, and a private group created the website beaconhillshelter.org to provide information on the project to the surrounding community.

Concerns voiced include the potential negative impact of an emergency shelter on home values, safety for students at nearby schools and nearby residents, traffic and noise. County staff attempted to answer some of these questions at the meeting and many of them are posted on the project webpage under FAQs.

Some attendees of the meeting were in support of the proposed shelter. A group calling themselves the Kennedy Shelter Allies had their own signs advocating the creation of a safe and modern facility for members of the community experiencing homelessness. Ventures in Community (VIC) is another group in favor of the proposed shelter and works to advocate for underserved groups in Fairfax County.

Thomas Barnett, director of Fairfax County’s Office to Prevent and End Homelessness, answered the bulk of questions at Tuesday’s meeting. He confirmed that if the site is chosen, an emergency shelter for single individuals would be built there with the potential for some affordable housing.

While emergency shelters do not tolerate drug and alcohol abuse on the premises, they will also not turn away anybody struggling with addiction or with a criminal record. In response to concerns over this, Barnett said that residents of the shelter will be “expected to behave” and that while it is rare for residents to be kicked out, they will work with case managers to find alternative housing. He said that residents of the emergency shelter “are not inherently dangerous.”

Assistant Commander of the FCPD Mount Vernon District Station, Fred Chambers, addressed public safety concerns around the emergency shelter. He reassured attendees that the police department will continue to do their job. He provided numbers from the existing shelter saying the department received 225 calls for service for 33 different reasons in 2019 and 178 in 2020 and 38 so far in 2021. He said in his experience working near a shelter in the Mason District, most calls were contained within the shelter.

Assistant Fire Chief Tom Arnold suggested that some members of the fire department do not support the emergency shelter being co-located with the new fire station, including the union which has concerns over the safety of fire personnel. He confirmed that the fire department was called to the Kennedy shelter 150-200 times a year over the past three years. 20 or 25 of those calls were for overdoses.

Barnett said that nationwide data on the impact of the building of a shelter on nearby property values is “inconclusive” and they are working on gathering local data which will be shared on the project website once available.

Noise mitigation and traffic studies, particularly for the fire station, will be part of the design if the project moves forward. Storck said residents interested in getting another traffic light installed near the project can contact his office to find out more about the process.

Fairfax County representatives emphasized that they are considering a handful of alternative locations for the emergency shelter and welcome ideas for other potential locations. One attendee asked about the former Safeway located in the Mount Vernon Square shopping center. The owner of the property is apparently not ready to sell and another developer is interested in the site.

The County is looking to review potential sites for the shelter within the next 4 to 8 weeks, and Storck stressed his commitment to make a final decision before the end of this year.

The recent closure of the Kennedy shelter in June only highlights the urgency of the project to for the County. Broken air conditioning could take 2-4 weeks to repair and residents are currently staying in nearby hotels through a FEMA COVID-19 program.

Once the new shelter site is finalized, the design phase could take up to 2.5 years followed by another 2.5 years for construction.

A recording of Tuesday’s meeting was posted on Storck’s Facebook page. Additional information on the proposed project and contact information can be found here.

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