The civilian and uniformed leaders of every military service apologized to Congress and military families for deplorable conditions at privatized military housing complexes across the country and vowed to take quick action to correct the deficiencies.
“I wish I could say I’m pleased to be here today, but I am not. I want to start by first apologizing personally on behalf of the Department of the Navy to any sailor, Marine soldier, airman, Coast Guardsman that was affected by the housing malady that we’ve seen before us,” said Navy Secretary Richard Spencer at an extraordinary hearing in which all the civilian service secretaries and military chiefs were summoned to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee by chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla.
“I can state with certainty that we can and we will correct the issue at hand, which is not acceptable,” Spencer said.
The Pentagon officials said despite years of complaints they were not aware of the scope of the problem until prompted by a congressional hearing earlier this year to conduct their own inspections of military housing provided by private companies under contract to the government.
“For far too long, privatized housing companies had been allowed to deliver a lackluster customer service to military families, conduct a bare minimum for routine maintenance, and exercise zero quality control while accruing sizable profits,” said Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, ranking Democrat on the committee. “Unfortunately, all this has been able to occur because of the lack of accountability by the Department of Defense.”
Reed cited an example of a Navy family who told his staffers that they had squirrels enter their attic through a hole in the roof.
“Soon after, the squirrels died and maggots dropped through their ceiling fan onto their bed. The housing company showed up to remove the squirrels but failed to seal the hole in the roof for the last year,” Reed said.
“Over the last two and a half years, workers from the housing company visited this same home 52 times for instances of water intrusion and inadequate follow-on work orders. Fifty-two times, without ever bothering to examine the root cause of the problem,” Reed continued. “I guarantee no one in this room would ever put up with such substandard living conditions.”
The three civilian leaders of the services, including Army Secretary Mark Esper and Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, testified they were all working on a coordinated response that includes drafting a Tenant Bill of Rights to guarantee that military families have recourse when they feel their needs are not being addressed.
“The recent reports of substandard conditions in some of our military housing units are deeply troubling. It is unacceptable for our families who sacrifice so much for our country to endure these hardships in their homes,” said Esper. “We are fully committed to solving this problem and have initiated a number of actions to ensure our soldiers and their families have access to safe, quality military housing across all of our installations.”
