Nearly 1,000 Fairfax County residents have sought help with food, health care and other basic needs over the past month, part of an increase in requests for aid stemming from the covid-19 crisis, county officials said Tuesday.
At the same time, in one of the country’s wealthiest communities, business closures and other measures to contain the virus have begun to drain funds needed to provide that assistance.
County officials said that half of the 924 residents seeking help for the first time in March needed food, reflecting the pain being felt in the region after restaurants, gyms and other businesses began to lay off workers after being ordered to close or severely limit service.
“We have seen people who have not traditionally called us,” Sarah Allen, a regional director for human services in Fairfax told the supervisors. “The nonprofits are also seeing new faces. In addition to the people we were already working with, there is a new layer and that other layer is looking different.”
Fairfax budget officials on Tuesday projected that the county will lose at least $72 million in revenues by the end of the year from sales taxes, business taxes and other sources.
The recently approved $2 trillion federal economic stimulus package isn’t likely to help because local governments can only be reimbursed for new spending related to the crisis, officials said.
As a result, county officials said they are reassessing the $4.6 billion budget for the next fiscal year that the board is scheduled to adopt in May. That budget proposed a residential property tax increase of at least three cents and a 4 percent tax on movie theater tickets aimed at funding affordable housing, police body cameras and other services.
Now, all county funding — including money allocated to local schools — is up in the air, said board chairman Jeff C. McKay.
“It’s fair to say that the old budget will be put aside,” McKay (D) said. “There’s gonna be pain in this budget and it needs to be shared pain.”
With 244 known coronavirus infections in the county, including two deaths, the demand for more help in the county is likely to skyrocket in the coming months, said Supervisor Dan Storck (D-Mount Vernon).
“We’re clearly at the front of this wave,” Storck said, calling for more county funds to go toward helping affected residents. “It’s gonna get bigger, not smaller. And I don’t believe that we’re ready.”
