The recent death of a woman who spent much of the last two decades on Arlington’s streets is driving conversation on intervention options in Virginia.
Carol Ann Sauer — remembered as a friend and a “fixture to locals” who helped her at times, especially during bad weather — died from complications related to pneumonia and sepsis at VHC Health shortly before midnight on Dec. 31. She was 66.
A Latin street food eatery in the Ballston Quarter’s food court looks to have served its last bites.
Maizal, a local chain that opened in the mall’s Quarter Market in 2019, has been boarded up. No renovation permits appear to have been filed for the space, and the brand did not respond to a request for comment.
This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at [email protected].
Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?
Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.
I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.
The Local Conversation Needs to Change
If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.
Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.
Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.
Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.
Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).
This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)
Update on 1/23/26: The watch has been upgraded to a Winter Storm Warning.
It’s official: a Winter Storm Watch has been issued for Arlington.
The number of Arlington residents counted as unemployed spiked 51% year-over-year in newly released state jobs data.
A total of 5,370 Arlingtonians were recorded as seeking jobs in November, according to figures reported Wednesday (Jan. 21) by the Virginia Department of Workforce Development and Advancement. That’s up from 3,561 in November 2024.
Live standup comedy in Arlington on Friday July 31 starring Jim Bryan, Kim Villamera, and Greg Billet.
Friday, July 31, 2026
An 18-year-old Arlington man is facing an array of charges after an incident in Fort Myer Heights that started with a noise complaint.
Officers were called to the 1600 block of 16th Street N. early Saturday morning and “encountered a group outside the building smoking marijuana in public,” according to an Arlington County Police Department crime report.
Days after taking office, Attorney General Jay Jones (D) is reversing his predecessor’s position on the Trump administration’s fight against in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Jones filed a motion to withdraw from an agreement that former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) made with the U.S. Department of Justice in a bid to invalidate the Virginia Dream Act of 2020.
Shirlington Crow Watching — “We met the birders late Saturday afternoon on the rooftop level of a parking garage by Shirlington Library in Arlington. As the sun set, through binoculars we watched the distant horizon: Crows trickled, then poured into the area. Several thousand perched on trees along a ridge that formed a semicircle around the parking garage… This is a winter thing, through February, experts say.” [Washington Post]
Tysons Casino Bill Returns — “Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D-34) is once again rolling the dice on legislation to allow a casino in Fairfax County. A bill that would add the county to Virginia’s list of localities eligible to host a casino was officially introduced yesterday (Tuesday) in the state Senate, which referred it to a Committee on General Laws and Technology. Numbered SB 756, the new bill is identical to one that Surovell brought forward in the General Assembly’s 2025 session.” [FFXnow]
Miyares Eyes 2029 Run — “Virginia’s outgoing top law enforcement officer, Jason Miyares, told fellow Republican attorney general to “stay tuned” on whether he’s planning to run for governor in 2029. For those who know Miyares personally, this update was unsurprising. As soon as he decided to run for reelection last time around, his plan was to run for governor in 2029 regardless of the 2025 result.” [National Review]
Latest on Weekend Snowstorm — “Computer models have come into relatively strong agreement that at least 6 inches is likely and that parts of the region could near or even surpass a foot. But… uncertainties remain. There is an increasing chance that snow could mix with and change to sleet and/or freezing rain for a time Sunday, lowering the ceiling on snow totals, especially south and east of D.C.” [CWG]
It’s Thursday — Expect mostly sunny skies and a high near 51, with southwest winds at 7 to 10 mph shifting to the west in the afternoon and gusting up to 20 mph. As for Thursday night, it will be partly cloudy with a low around 29. [NWS]
Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Jan 21, 2026.
Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect mostly sunny skies and a high near 51, with southwest winds at 7 to 10 mph shifting to the west in the afternoon and gusting up to 20 mph. As for Thursday night, it will be partly cloudy with a low around 29 and a light northwest wind at 3 to 6 mph. See more from Weather.gov.
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”
– Jack Canfield
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! If you have something to say about an issue of local note not covered today, feel free to post it as a letter to the editor on our new forum.
The threat of a major winter storm this weekend is now “high,” according to the National Weather Service.
The weather service said D.C. area residents should start preparing now for the storm, which is expected to begin Saturday afternoon or evening and peak Sunday morning.
