Christian Dorsey, the chairman of the Arlington County Board, was careful to note that he did not believe Amazon was directly responsible for the spike in home prices and cautioned that rent increases were typical for the area.

“Whether or not the rent increases the people have experienced recently are the result of Amazon, or just the normal demand in the housing market, we don’t know yet,” he said.

But low-income residents in Northern Virginia are worried. Amazon first began in Seattle in 1994, and since then, highly paid workers moving into the region to work at the company have driven up home and rental costs in the area. Homelessness rates have skyrocketed.

Arlington is already one of the most expensive places to live in Northern Virginia, largely because of its proximity to Washington, and many residents fear that it could now go the way of Seattle.

“The fact that we’re going to have 25,000 more jobs in Arlington is just likely to make it even more difficult for someone who doesn’t have a large income to live in Arlington,” said Christine Richardson, a board member of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.

Gloria, a housekeeper who has lived in Arlandria, a neighborhood in Alexandria, for over 13 years, has already seen rent increases. The increases have made it harder for her to afford basic needs like food, clothes and shoes for her daughters, who are in the sixth and seventh grades, and herself.