Northern Virginia Family Services (NVFS) is undergoing a lot of change, as they announce a new CEO and take on handling operations at the Hilda M. Barg Homeless Prevention Center.
Starting July 1, Stephanie Berkowitz, a 16-year employee with NVFS will take on her new role as CEO for the organization.
“I’m excited about the transition, we’ve just got this whole foundation we get to build off of and move forward from there,” said Berkowitz.
Berkowitz, who holds a Master’s degree in social work, worked with victims of the 9/11 attacks prior to her work at NVFS.
This transition in leadership comes at the same time as NVFS takes the reins of the Hilda Barg homeless shelter – named after former county supervisor Hilda Barg.
The county, who contracts out to vendors like NVFS for the operations piece, owns the 30-bed emergency homeless shelter.
According to Berkowitz, NVFS will be implementing the model they currently use at their SERVE shelter in Manassas at the Hilda Barg shelter.
“We will come in, and we will put together the staffing and we will replicate the model of our other shelter over in Manassas. It’s been recognized as a best practice model for moving people quickly out of homelessness into stable housing…We help them make a plan to stabilize, we move them in to stable housing and we continue to provide the support to help them there. We will be bringing that same model to Hilda Barg,” said Berkowitz.
These changes come at a time when the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has just released their 2015 regional homelessness report.
According to this report, there are 409 individuals that are considered homeless in Prince William County – 185 of them being single, 71 families, and 139 children.
