The Embry Rucker Community Shelter (ERCS) is a 70-bed residential shelter that provides healthy, safe, emergency housing for individuals and families. We are dedicated to helping our clients overcome the circumstances that led to their homelessness, and facilitate their transition to stable housing.
We are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and employ 20 full-time staff members. We also have several part-time staff and more than 400 volunteers dedicated to helping our clients get back on their feet.
Our Embry Rucker Community Shelter is located at 11975 Bowman Towne Drive in Reston, VA 20190.
The Shelter’s phone number is 703-437-1975.
Services
- Our comprehensive services include child care, medical assistance, nutritious meals, a nurse on staff and financial counseling.
- In addition, our in-house employment specialist helps unemployed or underemployed residents expand their skills as they prepare to look for work.
- For children, we offer tutoring and mentoring assessments to help achieve developmental and academic milestones.
- We also employ a full-time licensed housing broker who specializes in finding both traditional and non-traditional affordable housing and helps our residents settle into stable housing as quickly as possible.
- In addition to our residential programs, we offer drop-in access to hot meals, laundry machines, and shower facilities for unsheltered homeless people. These are clients who, either by choice or because our beds are full, live outdoors in cars or other places unsafe for human habitation.
- During the winter months of December through March, Cornerstones partners with Fairfax County to operate the North County Hypothermia Prevention Program (NCHP), one of three hypothermia prevention sites in Fairfax County.
- We operate a cooling center for the homeless as well as emergency shelter during severe storms and summer weather.
Need Help? Families seeking emergency shelter should call Coordinated Services Planning at 703-222-0880. Single adults in need of emergency shelter should call the Embry Rucker Community Shelter at 703-437-1975.
For additional assistance from Cornerstones and our resources partners, click here.