Affluent Fairfax Shows Another Face: Poverty

Centreville United Methodist is one of 17 county churches taking turns opening their doors for a week at a time, regardless of the temperature. Susan Lampshire, chief operating officer of FACETS (Fairfax Area Christian Emergency and Transitional Services), a nonprofit that runs the program with the Lamb Center, said the goal is simple.

"People should not die. They should have shelter and food during the winter."

Their situation is receiving new notice from county officials. After a recent visit to a church shelter, Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) proposed creating a mobile medical clinic to treat the chronically homeless.

"We've got to reach them," he said.

By 7 p.m., dinner was long over, but the gym was filled with kids dribbling around pylons under the gaze of men with clipboards. A few of the homeless wanted to watch but were kept away by program organizers. Some sacked out in the carpeted hallway outside the church sanctuary, undisturbed by choir rehearsal.

For the most part, the week-long coupling of deep suburbia and chronic homelessness went smoothly. Volunteers who cooked meals and helped out in the gym were unfailingly courteous, the visitors, deeply appreciative.

"What it reinforces is how we could all be in that situation," said Barb Shaiko, the Centreville church's director of missions.

There were a few bumpy moments. One man slipped out of the gym and was discovered the next morning in the unoccupied nursery, asleep inside a cabinet. A few men went to the neighboring shopping center and brought back alcohol.

Tensions over drinking erupted on the final evening, when alcohol breath tests were administered by employees from the Fairfax Detox Center in Chantilly. Who authorized the tests is in dispute. But 11 "guests" were bused back to the Lamb Center and given sleeping bags for a chilly night on the streets. The expulsions disturbed FACETS officials, who said that the program aimed to protect people from the cold, even if they're drunk.

One of those ejected was McMillon, a tall, lean man who always keeps a couple of cigarettes in the fold of his wool cap. Nicotine, he said, helps dull hunger.

McMillon said that he drinks -- "I make no bones about it" -- but that he wasn't bothering anybody that Sunday night. Come March, when the program ends, he said he will most likely be back in the woods if he hasn't found a job.

His work history is substantial. After several years as a D.C. firefighter, he joined the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a computer technician. He lost his job, he said, after taking time off to nurse his dying father. Like many of the others, he has family in the area and burned bridges that he won't discuss.

"I don't want to do the Jerry Springer thing and air dirty laundry," he said.

He spends many of his days in libraries, he said, looking for openings and applying online, leaving the Lamb Center as his contact number. It has been slow. He was called back for a second interview at a Best Buy but never heard from the store again.

He said he is grateful for the kindnesses people have shown him, such as the bus driver who gave him an all-day pass to stay warm. Still, his despair grows.

"You can bring people up from New Orleans, take them shopping, give them money, give them jobs," he said, "before you take care of people who have lived next door to you all your life."