The extreme poverty usually associated with the inner city has come to the suburbs.  As foreclosures and joblessness have spread, so has a suburban blight that is causing property values to drop even lower.  Other neighboring metro areas have their own share of this problem. 

According to the Washington Examiner:

For every poor person in the District, Arlington or Alexandria, two more live in the outer suburbs, according to the Brookings study.
“They’ve been hit the hardest,” Brookings scholar Elizabeth Kneebone said of the outer suburbs. “We can expect the numbers in 2009 to show an even larger increase in economic difficulties in the area.”

Here are some new statistics regarding poverty.  It was not all in Prince William County and surrounded cities:

Poverty in the Washington area

»  251,096 poor in outer suburbs, 2008

»  Inner city poverty rate dropped by 2.5 percent between 2000 and 2008

»  Outer suburban poverty rate rose by 0.3 percent between 2000 and 2008

Source: Brookings Institution

Getting a free lunch

Free and reduced meals in Montgomery County schools, by school year:

»  2007-08: 26 percent of students

»  2008-09: 27 percent of students

»  2009-10: 29 percent of students

Source: Maryland Hunger Solutions

 Fairfax residents look for help

Percentage increase in public assistance applications, November 2007-November 2009:

»  Food stamps: 78 percent

»  Welfare: 54 percent

»  Medicaid: 10 percent

Source: Fairfax County

Read more at the Washington Examiner:

 

12 Thoughts to “Blight and Poverty Comes to the ‘Burbs”

  1. Poor Richard noted on the earlier “Kaine and McDonnell Axe NoVA Schools” thread that there is a joint “local opinion” piece in the Washington Post today on the LCI issue that is signed by Sharon Bulova, Corey Stewart and Scott York (page C5):

    http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/01/insult_from_richmond.html

  2. Poor Richard

    Manassas Family Services, like most of its counterparts across
    the country, is dealing with a 1-2 punch. The lousy economy
    is driving more people to seek aid and at the same time
    pushing downward on the department’s budget. A
    dedicated hardworking staff is being pushed to the limit
    to serve some often very vulnerable people. A large
    group coming in the door are “first timers” who never thought
    they would need government help – until now.

  3. Gainesville Resident

    I think there’s a lot of people unfortunately who are for the very first time finding themselves needing aid due to these bad economic times, or “first timers” as PR says. It is unfortunate, and a sign of just how bad the economy is.

  4. Sometimes we tend to think a little too locally and act like PW and the 2 cities are the only places hit. That certainly is not the case. I need reminding.

    What is significant here is the change since 2007. Scary.

  5. Poor Richard

    The Food Stamp Program, now known as S.N.A.P. (Supplemental
    Nutrition Assistance Program) should be fully promoted by local
    jurisdictions. It feeds hungry people, it increase local food puchases
    AND, unlike most programs, it is all Federal money.

  6. Wolverine

    This is going on all over the country. I saw an article recently in the Michigan hometown newspaper stating that the food banks were handing out food to people who not too long ago had been themselves donating food to the same banks. That is really scary.

  7. GainesvilleResident

    I’m not at all surprised what Wolverine says – I kind of think I have at some point recently heard the same kind of thing – people once giving help to others are now needing help. He’s right, that IS scary – it says it could happen to any of us really. At least, I don’t know of too many people, who can say for 100% sure that something might not happen that they could lose their job tomorrow. In my business, a contract could lose funding by something the gov’t does, for example. It happened to me years ago at IBM in Manassas – actually the contract wasn’t canceled, but funding was “delayed” for a year. Same thing though – basically work you thought you had – you didn’t, and now what are you to do for the next year??? Then of course, a year later, when I had found work on another project (this was a small contract and really was me and a program manager) – the customer bitched because they wanted the original team (me and the program manager) on the project! What they didn’t realize was I nearly got laid off, but fortunately found another project to latch onto at the last minute – work was scarce then – a lot of people were charging “overhead” and in the same boat as I was.

    Anyway, it is happening all around the country, and people who never before needed help are finding themselves in the unfortunate position of needing help.

  8. Two good books by Barbara Ehrenreich to read in front of the fire: “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” and “Bait and Switch.”

    In the first, she documents trying to make a living at minimum-wage jobs. She worked as a cashier at Wal-Mart, and for a cleaning service, among other things.

    In the second, she explores people who’ve gotten college degrees, made careers (and donated food to food banks, I’m sure) but still are vulnerable to financial disaster — and not just due to the ups and downs of business.

  9. PWC taxpayer

    Like most problems, a multi-faceted approach is called for, to include short-term Federal , State and local public assistance. I wonder how some of you would react to other local efforts, like a tax deferal to allow folks to keep their homes, public jobs programs and, yes, even in these tough and worsening economoic times, local BOCS investments that might serve to generate new sources of revenue to the county and/or that might help allieviate other budget obligations? In the past, I have noted resistance on this Blog to public-private parterships in favor of public funding – funding that as this article noted is gettting more and more stretched?.

  10. Taxpayer, please provide some examples.

  11. Poor Richard

    Cindy touches on a key issue – the challenges of the working poor.

    Simple basic question – How do you live on the pay of an average
    worker at a fast food place or typical big box store in PWC – even if you
    aren’t dealing with cut hours? Gross pay comes to little more than
    $1200 a month – take out taxes, insurance, rent, transportation, etc.
    and you are left with a hard rock.

  12. Lafayette

    @Moon-howler
    Taxpayer is probably talking about those of us that opposed the BoS forking over $250K to Mr. Owen’s Civil War Events, Inc.. The fact was that were NOT opposed to public-private partnerships. We were concerned about the amount of money and NO plan for the money.
    I too am curious to see Taxpayer’s examples.

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