Needs Increasing For Income-Limited Loudoun Families Ineligible For Benefits

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — Loudoun County is often known as the wealthiest county based on the median household income. But for residents whose wages are not keeping up with the rising cost of living, making ends meet is a continuous challenge.

At United Way of the National Capital Area, Asset Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed (ALICE) is the term for families who are above the income threshold for benefits but struggle to afford the high cost of living. According to the nonprofit, an estimated 20 percent of households are designed as ALICE. That percentage is higher — 30 percent — in the Sterling and Leesburg communities.

Josh Etemadi, a United Way NCA board member who also chairs its Loudoun County Regional Council, told Patch a family of four with two kids in day care needs at least $126,000 just to make ends meet.

"When you factor in the federal poverty line, it's really closer to 25 percent of families within Loudoun County that are struggling with food insecurity, making rent, making their monthly payments, and just trying to get by," said Etemadi. "These are the families that we're really trying to help here in Loudoun County."

Etemadi understands what it's like for families living with tight budgets in Loudoun County. His family moved to Loudoun County in the 1980s. His immigrant Iranian father faced challenges getting a job even with a college degree, then making paychecks stretch to pay the bills.

"The story that my dad tells me, he still carries this single dollar bill in his wallet, which was the dollar that he had to get him through the week when we were growing up," said Etemadi. "He said there was a paycheck was coming. There wasn't any money in the bank or at home. He only had this dollar to get him through. And eventually we were able to get through that."

He continued, "But just simple things like asking my dad, 'hey, can we go to get ice cream?' Oftentimes the answer was no, you know, we have a popsicle at home. We didn't have a lot."

The impact of strained family budgets can also be felt at schools. Jane Kennedy, a family liaison at Dominion Trail Elementary School in Ashburn, is seeing increasing needs from working families faced with increasing costs of living.

Kennedy becomes familiar with families seeking help from the family liaison. However, a recent sign-up for families in need to receive holiday gifts found a good share being families she has not worked with before. That included workers furloughed during the federal government shutdown who were unsure if they could buy their children holiday gifts.

"There is a lot of income instability because of the federal shutdown. But even before that, we're talking about families who are just working in low income jobs and who don't have and who can't afford basic things like new clothes for their kids," Kennedy told Patch. "So unfortunately, there's no social safety net here in Loudoun County, and so these families, if something happens...they can quickly fall through and be facing a serious situation where they can't pay their rent."

While all Loudoun County Public Schools have family liaisons, they more often focus on offering supports for families in need at Title I schools with at least 50 percent of students eligible for free or reduced priced meals. Kennedy's Dominion Trail Elementary is "Title I eligible" with 40 percent or more eligible.

"We're in Ashburn. Ashburn, it's been nicknamed "Cashburn," said Kennedy. "It's thought of this wealthy area, and yet we're a Title I eligible school. There are two other Title I eligible schools just in this area."

One of the school's regular programs is the Fueled program through the Loudoun Education Foundation, which sends weekly bags of food to families in need. Kennedy typically identifies families needing food support by having them fill out a form at the start of the school year.

"The cost of living in Loudoun County is very high, and there is quite a high threshold for accessing help like SNAP or Medicaid," said Kennedy. "Your income has to be quite low to get into the programs and even the free and reduced lunch program, your family has to be under, at or under the federal poverty limit as gauged by the number of people in your household, and it's really quite low. And here in Loudoun County, rent is high. Food costs a lot, so a lot of these families are in that gray area."

Through United Way NCA's fundraising, Etemadi said nearly 48,000 meal bags were distributed to 18 Loudoun County schools through the Loudoun Education Fund's Fueled program. The fundraising from Tee Up for Equity helped fulfill 100 percent of meal bag requests, despite the requests increasing 12 percent from the previous year.

Kennedy noted that while families in need are increasing, resources are dwindling as programs like Loudoun Cares have lost grant funding. For example, Kennedy said grant funding cuts eliminated free eye exams and pairs of glasses for children in need.

At United Way NCA, the fifth Tee Up for Equity was held in October to help ALICE families with food assistance through the Loudoun Education Foundation. Since 2019, the events have raised over $200,000.

"For me, it's kind of a special place for me in my heart to give back to those families that are working hard," said Etemadi. "They're employed, their kids go to school. They're just trying to make ends meet. They're doing everything that they can."

Another success of United Way NCA has been referring nine students to after-school and 43 to summer camp programs through the McKinney-Vento Grant for homeless students.

Helping families with basic needs will in turn give their students a better chance at succeeding in school, according to Kennedy.

"A family that can't clothe or feed their child is a family that is anxious, that is stressed, where a child is coming to school hungry, coming to school cold," said Kennedy. "And we can't expect children to do well in school, to be in a frame of mind for learning if they're going to come to school cold and hungry. What I do is small, but it is a key part of keeping some stability, whether it's food stability, access to clothing stability, it's a way of keeping some stability in these children's lives."

For families in a position to help, Kennedy noted that the food pantry has limited space for physical donations. Monetary donations can help Kennedy provide specific food items based on what the families need that week. Kennedy encouraged families to contact their school's family liaison to see what programs they can support.

Kennedy also encourages donations to nonprofits "feeling the pinch because government grant funding has been cut." The family liaison pointed to the Loudoun Education Foundation, which supports about 18 schools with meal bags for families in need, and Loudoun Hunger Relief. Volunteer opportunities are another way to help.

"These families being here, all of us being here provides a diversity and a richness to Loudoun that is amazing, and it's strong," said Kennedy. "And so my plea that I made before the school board last year, that I try to make, is for those of us who can to use our voices, our votes, to use our money if we can donate to try to build up the social safety net here in Loudoun so that these families can stay here and can continue to thrive here."

Etemadi encourages residents to volunteer with the United Way NCA or find an event to give back to.

"I would also encourage them to get active in the community, recognize that even though we're known as the richest county in the country, a lot of our neighbors are just struggling to get by," said Etemadi. "And we don't always know what that looks like, but I've seen it firsthand. I go to Loudoun Hunger Relief to donate food at least a couple times a month, and I see folks loading their cars with groceries. And these are our neighbors, and these are our friends that are trying to get by."