MILITARY UPDATE
Privatization slowly improving military housing
Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 50, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.
By Tom Philpott
Military families stuck in shabby quarters have been hearing for years about a boom in the quality of base housing expected to flow from 1996 initiatives to privatize base renovation and construction programs.
Despite all the talk, progress has been slow. The services resisted turning control of housing inventories over to private firms, even though their own construction budgets failed to sustain decent housing standards.
Private contractors balked at military housing deals, worried at the risks of investing in property for renters susceptible to base closures, massive deployments or deeper downsizing of forces in the post-Cold War era.
As a result, 60 percent of military family housing today is officially described as "inadequate."
But the pace of renovations and replacements is picking up, said Joe Sikes, director of the Defense Department's housing privatization program. Through 2002, the military signed 17 privatization deals involving 26,000 units. That is modest progress for an effort begun seven years ago.
But another 20 projects, involving 41,000 more housing units, are scheduled to be signed by October. Next fiscal year, 35,000 more units will be slated for upgrade through 47 new contracts. Thanks to privatization, Sikes said, the services expect by 2007 to address most of 168,000 inadequate housing units found in the military worldwide.
Sikes credits a shift in service culture, as worries rose over deteriorating housing, and a change of heart in the real estate investment community toward military projects after early successes in privatization at Fort Carson, Colo., and Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
"Frankly, everybody else wanted to see how those turned out before the momentum really got going," said Sikes.
Privatization happened or is under way at Naval Station Everett and Fort Lewis, Wash., San Diego Naval Base and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Deals will close this month on transfer of 5600 housing units at Fort Bragg and 1700 Marine Corps units near Beaufort, S.C. Contracts will be signed later this year at Fort Shafter and other bases in Hawai'i, Fort Stewart, Ga., Fort Eustis, Va., Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., and Hill AFB, Utah.
The idea behind privatization is to leverage construction dollars to quicken the overhaul of military housing. Deals can involve the transfer of units and sometimes land. Contractors agree to renovate or replace, then to rent back to military families at rates to match their housing allowances.
Reaction to privatization among service families, such as those at Fort Carson, has been very positive, Sikes said.
"We signed the deal and 1800 soldiers had to go down and fill out allotments" to cover their rent. It confused them, he said. "But once the dust settled, people said, 'Hey, this is pretty good. I called the guy up to fix my sink and he wanted to fix my door knob, too.' The private sector operates different from the government."
It's a difference, Sikes said, that many more military families will come to appreciate soon.
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