WEST POINT, New York--One U.S. military base has dubbed it Operation Victory Homefront. It's a mission the world's most powerful military never envisioned.
To safeguard American service families living on U.S. bases around the world, the military branches have been dispatching commanders to visit nearly 300,000 housing units since February and document health and safety hazards – many of the military's own making.
The mobilization represents the biggest overhaul of U.S. military housing since the Department of Defense began privatizing its family dwellings in 1996. The operation comes in response to a Reuters series, Ambushed at Home, that revealed how families living on U.S. bases were exposed to lead poisoning, mold-related illnesses, ceiling collapses and pest infestations.
"In my 23 years in the Army I've never seen them tackle a problem so head on," said Colonel Harry Marson, the garrison commander at West Point, site of the U.S. Military Academy north of New York City. Marson is hiring additional housing staff, auditing maintenance records, and overseeing home visits on the post along the Hudson River.
To track the military's response, Reuters visited two bases, spoke with dozens of families, interviewed military leaders and reviewed scores of documents. What emerged is a picture of a sharp departure from decades of lax housing oversight, along with lingering concern among military families that the changes won't stick.
In surveys conducted to date, the military received reports of more than 10,000 homes needing safety upgrades or repairs, resulting in thousands of work orders, Department of Defense officials said at an April 4 House Armed Services Committee hearing. Hundreds of tenants have been moved out of base homes, at least temporarily. While the military says most homes are safe, it has acknowledged long-festering problems.
"It's an embarrassment where we are," Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told Congress last month. "I'm not going to defend anything. It's a leadership failure."
One priority: a hiring spree on bases. At the recent hearing, the Army said it has already hired 119 new housing staff, and expects its private real estate partners to employ hundreds more, according to Alex Beehler, an Army assistant secretary. The Air Force has requested $31 million from Congress to hire 250 housing staff, said John Henderson, an Air Force assistant secretary.
The total cost of the response effort is still being calculated, and the military has said its private industry partners should foot a significant portion of the bill. Last year, an internal Pentagon estimate put the price of just one new Army housing inspection program at up to $386 million.
Since then, the housing crisis has prompted four scathing congressional hearings and a growing grassroots movement of military families active on social media and in the halls of Congress. Army Secretary Mark Esper told Reuters in February that the news reports had alerted the military to "unconscionable" conditions. He and other top Army officials have since visited housing on bases across the country.
Yet even as some families laud the actions taken by the military so far, many expressed distrust of the programme's private housing contractors – more than a dozen large real estate developers and property managers who hold 50-year contracts to operate base housing in partnerships with the service branches. These private ventures, which house around 700,000 tenants, collect nearly $4 billion in annual rent payments.
"No one can tell me who these companies answer to," said Leigh Tuttle, an Army wife whose children developed respiratory illnesses while residing in a mold-infested home at Fort Polk in Louisiana.
For years, Reuters found, many families had little recourse as some of their children were sickened or suffered irreversible developmental delays. Federal base communities are typically outside the purview of state and local building code or environmental inspectors. Unlike in civilian communities, base tenants have often had limited ability to challenge powerful landlords in business with their military employers.
In March, a reporter met with five affected families at Army Fort Meade in Maryland, the largest military installation in the capital region and site of the secretive National Security Agency. All had recently been removed from homes with mold, dilapidated roofs or other problems. Under pressure from Army leadership, the private housing venture operated by real estate firm Corvias has been repairing homes and conducting air quality tests across the base's nearly 2,900 dwellings.
Navy spouse Sandra Buitrago said she's relieved her family now has a hazard-free Meade home, after a two-year ordeal in a house containing black mold, crumbling beams and a gaping hole in the floor of her kids' room. They now rely on prescription medicine for respiratory ailments, according to medical records. The family has thrown away mold-riddled personal belongings that cost more than $10,000, including a sectional couch, bed sets and chairs. In the replacement home, they sleep on air mattresses.
"It was either keep our stuff or have our kids healthy," Buitrago said.
Corvias is poised to receive more than $1 billion in fees from its Army housing ventures over the lifespan of its contracts, Reuters reported last year. The Buitragos say they have received support from base commanders, and are seeking reimbursements from Corvias.
The company said it is committed to providing better service but that families, like the Buitragos, must allow a third party to assess damages before Corvias can pay; the company said that hasn't happened yet. "Corvias is working hard to do right by this family and all other families in the program," a spokeswoman wrote. "Corvias is taking a wide range of actions to improve military housing and return to the gold standard our residents expect and deserve."
At Meade, some changes are visible. Many home exteriors have been power-washed, and several units are undergoing extensive mold remediation. An environmental inspection firm is making rounds. More Corvias maintenance vehicles are circulating.
