[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


.                                     
                         [H.A.S.C. No. 118-42]

                       AN UPDATE ON UNACCOMPANIED

                   MILITARY HOUSING AND THE MILITARY 
                    HOUSING PRIVATIZATION INITIATIVE

                               __________

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                         QUALITY OF LIFE PANEL

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                           SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

                                     
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                             __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-808                        WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                         

                         QUALITY OF LIFE PANEL

                     DON BACON, Nebraska, Chairman

NANCY MACE, South Carolina           CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas               VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia        SARA JACOBS, California
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam                MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
MARK ALFORD, Missouri                DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
JIM BANKS, Indiana, Ex Officio       ANDY KIM, New Jersey, Ex Officio

                Ellie Bender, Professional Staff Member
                 Ilka Regino, Professional Staff Member
                  Alexandria Evers, Research Assistant
                           
                           
                           C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Bacon, Hon. Don, a Representative from Nebraska, Chairman, 
  Quality of Life Panel..........................................     1
Escobar, Hon. Veronica, a Representative from Texas, Quality of 
  Life Panel.....................................................     3

                               WITNESSES

Coulson, Carla, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for 
  Installations, Housing, and Partnerships, Department of the 
  Army...........................................................    16
Field, Elizabeth A., Director, Defense Capabilities and 
  Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office..............     3
Moriarty, Robert E., Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force 
  for Installations, Department of the Air Force.................    18
Thompson, Robert E., Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the 
  Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment, Department of 
  the Navy.......................................................    17

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Bacon, Hon. Don..............................................    35
    Coulson, Carla...............................................    59
    Field, Elizabeth A...........................................    39
    Houlahan, Hon. Chrissy, a Representative from Pennsylvania, 
      Ranking Member, Quality of Life Panel......................    37
    Moriarty, Robert E...........................................    86
    Thompson, Robert E...........................................    78

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [Documents submitted are retained in the committee files.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Bacon....................................................    97
    Ms. Houlahan.................................................    98
    Ms. Jacobs...................................................   107
    Ms. Strickland...............................................   114
                 
                 
                 AN UPDATE ON UNACCOMPANIED MILITARY
       HOUSING AND THE MILITARY HOUSING PRIVATIZATION INITIATIVE

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
                                     Quality of Life Panel,
                     Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 27, 2023.
    The panel met, pursuant to call, at 10:03 a.m., in room 
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Don Bacon (chairman 
of the panel) presiding.

  OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DON BACON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
           NEBRASKA, CHAIRMAN, QUALITY OF LIFE PANEL

    Mr. Bacon. The hearing will now come to order. I ask 
unanimous consent that the Chair be authorized to declare a 
recess at any time. I do not think we have votes scheduled 
during this. So that is good. So without objection, so ordered.
    I want to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Quality 
of Life Panel. Today's hearing is an update on unaccompanied 
housing and we are going to focus on that in the first panel. 
And then we are going to talk more about Military Housing 
Privatization Initiative with our second panel.
    I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today. I 
hope this hearing provides an opportunity for our members to 
have a productive exchange with our witnesses and provide 
answers to their questions.
    Today, we are addressing an issue that is critical to the 
quality of life for service members and their families: the 
state of military housing. This is an issue that goes beyond 
party lines and demands our attention and action. Our men and 
women in uniform have put their life on the line to protect our 
freedom. They and their families make countless sacrifices for 
our Nation. We owe it to these individuals to ensure they have 
access to safe, comfortable, and affordable housing.
    Unfortunately, the reality of military housing is often far 
from that. And that is our focus for today.
    Last week, the Government Accountability Office published a 
report detailing deplorable and frankly inexcusable conditions 
of our unaccompanied housing for junior service members. Sewage 
overflow, water quality issues, rodent infestations, mold, 
broken air-conditioning units in sweltering heat, and others 
all have been found in these facilities, facilities that 
service members are expected and required to live in. I just 
want to say I was a base commander at Ramstein and at Offutt 
Air Force Base. If I would have had these conditions in any of 
our barracks, I would have got fired.
    One of the things that we want to know today, where is the 
accountability at with these barracks? Has anybody been held 
accountable? And what are we going to do to get this right and 
get it fixed? I don't recall the standards being this way when 
I got out in 2014. Something has happened. We need to put our 
finger on it and get it fixed.
    So we cannot allow this situation to persist. It is an 
issue not only of justice and dignity, but also of military 
readiness. When our service members are preoccupied with their 
health and safety, they cannot focus on their mission.
    A few years ago, we saw similar conditions in private 
family military housing. Families dealt with long delays in 
repair and maintenance requests or requests that were not 
responded to at all. Children were getting sick from mold and 
lead paint, and members feared retribution from private 
companies if they complained to their command. This situation 
required extensive congressional action to make improvements to 
these conditions.
    The Department [of Defense] and individual services have 
continued to neglect the oversight and management these 
projects require. They have failed to provide the housing that 
service members need and deserve. I believe what we are going 
to hear next will prove this. This matter must be addressed. We 
must demand greater accountability from the Department of 
Defense [DOD].
    Today, we will hear from two panels. The first panel is an 
expert from GAO [U.S. Government Accountability Office] that 
will share the results of a recent audit of unaccompanied 
housing facilities, including issues related to funding and 
oversight.
    In the second panel, we will hear from DOD officials 
responsible for housing policy. They will describe the current 
status of privatized military housing. Additionally, they will 
address the implementation of statutorily required provisions 
ensuring the quality of this housing.
    I would now like to welcome our witnesses for the first 
panel. We have Elizabeth Field. She is the director of GAO's 
Defense Capabilities and Management Team. Before doing so, I 
want to yield to Ms. Escobar who is filling in for our ranking 
member.
    Before I do, this is so important, just to go off script a 
little bit. We have a recruiting and retention problem in our 
military right now. The quality of life isn't the only factors. 
There are other factors, but quality of life is one. When you 
talk to parents with an 18-year-old son or daughter and you ask 
them do you want their son or daughter to serve, when they hear 
stuff like these barracks, it inhibits folks from wanting their 
18-year-old sons or daughters to join. If you're an 18-year-
old, you see this. It is an inhibiter. We have got to get this 
right.
    And with that, I yield to Ms. Escobar.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Bacon can be found in the 
Appendix on page 35.]

   STATEMENT OF HON. VERONICA ESCOBAR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
                  TEXAS, QUALITY OF LIFE PANEL

    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. And I would 
like to thank you for your focus on this issue at the hearing 
today. And I would like to associate myself with your remarks 
on just how unacceptable the current situation remains.
    We know that especially for young families, this is a 
critical component of their quality of life. We also know that 
part of our recruitment challenge is the fact that it is not 
just the service member who serves, but the entire family. And 
so we have to make sure that we are upholding our commitment to 
the highest potential standard of quality of life and this 
discussion is a critical component to that.
    I have the incredible privilege of serving on behalf of my 
community, El Paso, Texas, home to Fort Bliss, a critical, key, 
amazing asset for our national defense. And I have had some of 
these same concerns for some time now. Unfortunately, I was not 
surprised by the GAO report issued this month on military 
housing. And so our responsiveness is going to be key to 
continuing to see improvements. And I know that there are many, 
not just here on this dais, not just in Congress, not just 
Active Duty service members, but I know there are members of 
the administration who also find this absolutely unacceptable. 
And I look forward to a path forward and I am eager to get into 
these two panels.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Escobar. Ms. Field, you will have 
the opportunity to present your testimony and each member will 
have an opportunity to question you for about 5 minutes. Your 
written comments and statements will be made part of the 
hearing record. And with that, Ms. Field, you may make your 
opening statement.

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH A. FIELD, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES 
     AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Ms. Field. Thank you, Chairman Bacon, Congresswoman 
Escobar, and members of the panel. It is an honor to be here 
today.
    Since March of 2018, GAO has made more than 80 
recommendations to the Defense Department to improve both 
privatized family housing and government-owned unaccompanied 
housing. The most recent of these recommendations come from a 
report that we issued just last week focusing on the condition 
of unaccompanied housing, which I will refer to as barracks.
    As you know, military barracks are used to house our most 
junior enlisted service members, many of them teenagers fresh 
out of high school. Unfortunately, because of this, we found 
that many, although not all, Department officials have chosen 
not to obtain their input about the quality of their housing. 
According to these officials, this demographic group is so 
unreliable in terms of completing surveys or replying to email 
or telephone inquiries that it isn't worth trying to solicit 
their opinion. Other officials told us that the condition of 
barracks is not a key factor in military retention and 
therefore doesn't merit inclusion as a topic in already lengthy 
surveys.
    What we learned, however, is that these service members 
have a lot to say and are eager for someone to listen. Over the 
course of 5 months, we visited 10 military installations where 
we held discussion groups with service members living in the 
barracks. We promised them that their input mattered, that we 
needed to hear from them because Congress wanted to hear from 
them.
    So today, because this panel is all about quality of life, 
I would like to honor that commitment to them and share what we 
heard and saw about quality of life in the barracks. As I 
recount our discussions, I invite you to turn your attention to 
the slides projected which document some of the substandard 
conditions we observed.
    [The slides referred to are retained in the committee files 
and can be viewed upon request.]
    Ms. Field. One of the most common complaints we heard was 
about mold. There was a leak and black mold in the shower, one 
resident told us, and maintenance still won't fix it, no matter 
how often it is reported. Another resident said mold in the 
barracks makes you feel expendable, like we don't matter.
    A number of the facilities we visited had broken HVAC 
[heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning] systems. One 
Marine said, I often wake up at night sweating from the heat, 
itching from bed bugs, and feeling like I am suffocating. And 
this from an airman: It can be really challenging to come in 
from a day of working where you may be exposed to the cold or 
to the heat all day and then get no relief from the 
temperatures when you return to your room.
    Although DOD standards call for barracks rooms to have at 
least a kitchenette, we found that none of the military service 
standards reflects that requirement. Not surprisingly, 
therefore, we saw barracks where residents had access to only a 
small fridge and microwave or in one case only a small 
microwave. They told us it made it hard for them to follow a 
healthy diet. For example, one resident told us it is 
challenging to meet physical readiness requirements when the 
only options for meals are frozen food that can be microwaved 
and fast food.
    Perhaps some of the most troubling statements we heard had 
to do with safety. It is difficult to feel safe in the 
barracks, one sailor told us. The doors don't work. Anyone can 
access our rooms, recounted a Marine. Sexual assault happens in 
the barracks more than people think, one service member said.
    In every one of our discussion groups, the topic of mental 
health came up. These are just a few of the statements we 
heard. It is depressing to come home to a dark box after work. 
I feel cramped and like the walls are closing in and that 
causes me anxiety and stress. The barracks feel like living in 
a run-down motel or in a prison.
    These problems are, unfortunately, not dissimilar from the 
ones we have observed and documented in privatized family 
housing. The only real difference is that the Defense 
Department has felt more pressure in recent years to fix the 
problems in family housing than it has to fix the problems with 
barracks. I appreciate that today's hearing should help rectify 
that.
    History tells us though that ensuring better housing for 
our service members and their families will take sustained 
oversight and attention. Twenty years ago, GAO reported many 
similar problems with the condition of barracks. Ten years ago, 
in a report to Congress, DOD lauded the progress it had made in 
modernizing its barracks program. It stated that by increasing 
military construction funding, introducing new designs offering 
more privacy and amenities, and directing more maintenance 
funding to barracks, it had brought the modernization program 
closer to completion. The Department also promised that 
military barracks would be adequately maintained over the long 
term. Obviously, that didn't happen.
    We believe that the recommendations in our report, if fully 
implemented, will put the Department on a better footing to 
address this substantial challenge, but it will take years to 
reverse the chronic neglect and underfunding we uncovered.
    I appreciate this panel's focus on the problem and hope 
that it is the beginning of many conversations about how the 
military can do better by its most junior Active Duty members.
    Thank you again for this opportunity and I look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Field can be found in the 
Appendix on page 39.]
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Field. When you see these 
pictures, it is disgusting, unacceptable, cannot go on. During 
your time, and during GAO's time investigating this, was there 
a sense of accountability in the services whether it is at the 
Pentagon level or the installation commanders? Does anybody 
take ownership of this?
    Ms. Field. I think that changed to a certain extent over 
the course of our audit. As we began to do more interviews and 
site visits, I think people knew GAO was there and maybe they 
should start paying attention. But I will tell you what was one 
of most troubling things we observed during our audit was that 
the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which is supposed to 
oversee the barracks programs, give guidance to the military 
services, very much had a hands-off approach to this, to this 
topic. When we asked them some basic questions at the beginning 
of our audit about how many barracks there were, whether they 
were not complying with standards, how many service members 
lived there, they couldn't tell us. I think that is changing, 
but you are absolutely right that it has been an issue.
    Mr. Bacon. Was there at least a sense at the installation 
level, that the commander of that installation had ownership of 
this? Or was it ``it's not my problem''?
    Ms. Field. I think at the installation level, there was 
more of a sense of ownership. We spoke to a number of 
installation commanders who, frankly, told me, told us that 
they felt sick about the conditions that their junior enlisted 
service members were living in. They often recounted facing 
sort of impossible choices between where to put limited 
funding. So yes, at the installation level, I think there was 
more accountability.
    Mr. Bacon. So how would conditions in unaccompanied housing 
been able to deteriorate over time? And what has prevented the 
Department from paying adequate attention to this housing and 
making improvements? I note that for every Presidential budget 
on DOD, Congress has put more money in. So I don't see how we 
can blame it on funds. We have actually plussed-up DOD's 
Presidential requests. So I am curious, what is the story--how 
did this happen?
    Ms. Field. Well, you are right that Congress has in many 
cases given funding to the services when they haven't asked for 
funding for barracks. It might not have been the entirety of 
what they needed though and that is because we found in our 
audit that a lot of times even though installations know they 
need funding for constructing new barracks, they don't feel 
comfortable requesting that funding because they know it won't 
compete well against other requirements. And so they don't put 
those requests forward.
    It really is a matter though of chronic underfunding at the 
DOD level, not on Congress' part. So what happens is facilities 
need to be maintained, up-kept, as any facility does. But the 
Department, we have reported previously, tends to only fund to 
about 80 percent of sustainment needs. And the facilities that 
most often lose out are things like barracks. Eventually, if 
you don't fund sustainment enough, you are going to need to 
build an entirely new barracks. Which means you need new 
MILCON, military construction funding. And eventually, if you 
don't do that, you are going to have to spend money on basic 
allowance for housing to get service members to live in the 
economy because you just can't find a place for them to live. 
So I think it is a combination of that chronic underfunding and 
neglect, but also that lack of accountability.
    And this is just the last point I will make, I know I am 
out of time. But I think it is important because it strikes to 
the heart of your question. I think there has been a cultural 
perspective within the Department that part of being in the 
military is toughing it out and this is just going to get them 
ready for the military. And unfortunately, I think that has 
gotten us in part to where we are today.
    Mr. Bacon. So what I am hearing to a degree is when you buy 
a new car, if you maintain it, do the oil changes, spend 
smaller amounts of money to maintain it, you keep the car for a 
longer time. If you don't, you have to pay a lot more money to 
replace it. And what I am hearing is we are not doing the 
normal maintenance to maintain these, and then we are having to 
put a lot more money in. It is penny-wise, pound foolish is 
what I am hearing. Am I hearing you right?
    Ms. Field. Yes, you said it better than I did. Absolutely, 
that is right.
    Mr. Bacon. I am a farm kid. That's what we do. So if you 
had one or two key recommendations right now to make this 
better, what would you recommend?
    Ms. Field. So, I think in a time of limited resources, what 
the Department needs to do is gather the information it needs 
to make more strategic decisions about where to put limited 
resources. That means knowing what condition the barracks are 
in. They don't know that right now. Knowing how much they are 
spending on things like basic allowance for housing so they can 
do a more informed cost-benefit analysis. It means reevaluating 
policies about who is required to live in the barracks and how 
you make exceptions to those policies. It means reconsidering 
the barracks manager position. So there is a lot.
    Our hope is, and this is one of our final recommendations, 
that the Department develop a joint strategy so the services 
can learn from one another so that standards can be put in 
place that are consistent to try to behind this problem. But as 
you pointed out, we have 31 recommendations so there is a lot 
the Department needs to do.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you very much. With that, I recognize Ms. 
Escobar for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to 
thank you so much for your work. And the component of the 
impact on mental health is something that really struck me. And 
it made me recall a hearing that we had last Congress on the 
Military Personnel Subcommittee about suicides, Active Duty 
member suicide and veteran suicide. And I will never forget one 
of our experts and I wish I could recall his name in his 
moment, but a psychiatrist who said you have got to think about 
this in a different way. Many of our service members, it is not 
that they come in suffering with chronic depression or even 
have had suicide ideation before, but so much of this is rooted 
in environment. And he said your job, Congress, is really to 
think about the environment and the impact it has on mental 
health. And it was just such a--I think a profound realization 
for me in terms of not just how much more significant our 
obligation is around environment, but the impact of chronic 
underfunding and these chronic issues can have on our service 
members.
    And as an example, at Fort Bliss we have some transient 
barracks that honestly in comparison to what we saw, there is 
no comparison. However, the HVAC system was so outdated and in 
El Paso, we struck a record this year of about 3 months of 100-
plus-degree temperatures which had never happened before in the 
history of our weather tracking. And our transient barracks 
just could not sustain that even under the best of conditions. 
And as we kind of pulled the thread on that, we learned that it 
was a priority, it is just in terms of the context of so many 
other priorities fell further down the list. And we ended up 
making the decision to fund this out of our community project 
funding requests which took a huge chunk of our funding for the 
community, but it was critical and important for the 
installation.
    My question to you is, and thank you for the 
recommendations, aside from me, for example, as the Member of 
Congress who was frequently going on site visiting these 
barracks, wanting to keep direct eyes on it, if we could do one 
thing, the most important thing in our oversight function, 
would it be, for example, making easier surveys that are online 
through an app? Maybe you already do that. Or are there 
others--like is there one strategy for us to have better eyes 
on this?
    Ms. Field. So, it is hard to pick because there are so many 
problems and this might sound like sort of a cop-out, but it is 
not. And that is, if we don't see the Department implement all 
31 of our recommendations in a meaningful and timely manner, I 
would encourage you to consider putting those recommendations 
into legislation to make them statutorily required. That is 
something that has happened with privatized family housing and 
I think that has been effective. I will note that the 
Department concurred with most of our recommendations, but in 
some cases they were partial concurrences and statements that 
they have already implemented the recommendations and so they 
are good. They are not good. So focusing on full and prompt 
implementation of our recommendations would be my 
recommendation.
    Ms. Escobar. That is excellent. Thank you so much. And then 
I do want to follow up on the surveys because it is a problem 
when the users of an asset don't participate in helping 
evaluate it and we only have, and we only have--we have less 
than a minute. What can we do to improve surveys, because those 
are critical?
    Ms. Field. Well, the importance is to survey in the first 
place. So we found that only two of the services were even 
bothering to survey barracks residents about their satisfaction 
with housing, so the remaining two need to do it. We also found 
that none of the services routinely inquire and ask barracks 
residents how the barracks conditions impact their decision to 
reenlist, which is a DOD requirement. So we have 
recommendations for them to do that. I will note that I think 
it is the Navy and the Marine Corps--Navy and Marine Corps that 
are the ones that are surveying and they have developed a 
number of interesting ways to try to get their responses up. So 
I would encourage you to ask the next panel, particularly the 
Navy representative, how they have done that because they have 
been successful.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you. I would like to recognize Ms. 
Strickland from Washington.
    Ms. Strickland. Thank you, Chairman. Ms. Field, thank you 
so much for your testimony. I do appreciate it. I represent 
Joint Base Lewis-McChord, one of the largest military 
installations on the west coast. The housing challenges of the 
barracks aren't as severe, but there are still challenges we 
have.
    So much of our conversation today has been about resources, 
so I don't know if you all have had this discussion, but if we 
were to bring our barracks up to what I call safe, habitable, 
something that doesn't look run-down or uninhabitable like we 
saw on these slides, what would the price tag be for that?
    Ms. Field. So that is a great question. It is one that we 
tried to answer through our audit. Bottom line is we don't know 
a total figure, in part, because the Department itself does not 
know how much it has been spending on barracks, whether it is--
particularly if it is maintenance funding. But I can give you 
one statistic that might be helpful in terms of even getting a 
ballpark. In I think it was 2022 the Air Force did submit a 
report to Congress in which it stated that it estimated it had 
about a $3.6 billion backlog just in terms of maintenance and 
upkeep of its existing barracks and it would cost about $1 
billion to newly construct some barracks that it needed. That 
is one service. It is not the biggest service, so that should 
give you some sense of scope here.
    Ms. Strickland. I know and I appreciate that. I know in 
this committee we often have conversations about chronic 
underfunding, but until we put a dollar amount to it, it 
doesn't have context. And I say that because as you know, in 
Congress there is often a push-pull between let's just 
arbitrarily cut defense by 10 percent and then there are people 
who want to plus it up more. So I think that having a specific 
dollar amount to talk about what it is going to take to bring 
our barracks up to par in addition to any new capital 
investments we need, gives us a more realistic place to start.
    I want to talk a bit about privatization. I know that with 
the family military housing, it did not turn out to be the 
silver bullet that we thought it would. Private developers have 
to make money and I know that the business model for them isn't 
panning out. So can you talk a bit about the challenges that 
the services have shared with you about initiatives to 
privatize the barracks?
    Ms. Field. So privatization is a tricky question because I 
think one of the things we have learned from this audit is 
whether it is government-owned or privatized, if you don't pay 
attention, if you don't fund, you are going to end up with poor 
living conditions. We did tour some privatized barracks, 
particularly in San Diego, and I have to be honest, they were 
in amazing condition. They were way ahead of some of the 
government-owned barracks. Privatization though is not a silver 
bullet and that is because particularly for the population 
living in the barracks, it is not as easy as it was for family 
housing. For example, OMB [Office of Management and Budget] 
scoring can be an issue because it essentially commits the 
government to a financial obligation and so scoring can be 
problematic. This is a population that moves around more often 
than families and so if you have barracks that are--you know, 
privatized barracks that might be left for months at a time if 
someone goes off on a training mission, that is a problem. 
There is also issues related to unit cohesion and the fact that 
this is a younger population who are new to the military. So 
there are a lot of things to work out, legal, legally related, 
funding-related. It could actually cost more. It is a difficult 
policy question.
    Ms. Strickland. All right, and I would say finally, can you 
talk about--well, you talked a bit about this, where do you 
think it makes more sense to privatize the barracks versus just 
having them government run? Because to your point, it is not 
necessarily a silver bullet. But I do think that we have to use 
every possible tool available to make sure we are doing this. 
And the comment I want to make is I think about how parents 
would feel if they went to dormitory to drop off their kids at 
the university and if some of those pictures existed, hell 
would be raised. And so I want to make sure that we are 
treating these barracks for the people who are serving the same 
way we would treat parents dropping their kids off at college.
    Ms. Field. Well, I agree. As a mother of a 17-year-old who 
is one year away from college, you are absolutely right. I 
think your question was where would privatization make sense? 
Two thoughts on that. One, the Department is on the hook to 
deliver a report to Congress on overall joint approach to 
privatization. That was due in July of this year. The 
Department has not delivered it. We could not get any clear 
information from the Department on when it will be delivered, 
so I think if this committee could push the Department to 
complete that report, that would be helpful.
    The other note I will make is that I think some 
installations have been successful with privatization for some 
of the slightly more senior service members, so E-5s, E-6, 
maybe E-4, that might make more sense.
    Ms. Strickland. All right, thank you very much. And as we 
talked earlier, we have a challenge with recruiting. Word of 
mouth is very, very strong, so if you want to address some of 
these quality of life issues, housing is a basic need and it 
cannot be substandard. But I think solving the problem means 
coming up with a dollar amount and not being afraid to say it 
is a lot of money. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Strickland. I read that we had--
let me get the number here, that we had $137 billion in 
maintenance backlog. Does that jive with the number you have?
    Ms. Field. Yes, that is what we have reported. And I should 
note that is probably, likely an underestimate.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you. With that, I will recognize Mrs. 
Kiggans from Virginia. She represents large naval 
installations.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I represent Virginia's 
Second Congressional District, so Virginia Beach-Hampton Roads 
area, a large Navy and veteran population. I can't imagine how 
frustrating it was just to visit those barracks. I know on 
barracks tours in my district, I have left almost in tears. It 
is hard to watch. As a veteran, Navy spouse, Navy mom, I think 
of my kids and their friends, and I put my staff in my minivan 
the first weekend I could and drove them down to Hampton Roads 
and said look around and think about, you know, we talked about 
the college campuses, but think about the dorms there. And I 
have done lots of dorm tours with my high school kids. And then 
think about the conditions that we are asking these guys to 
live in. So I know we have mentioned recruitment, retention, 
but I mean this is absolutely directly correlated to those 
issues. It hurts my heart when I hear other Navy and military 
parents say I can't recommend this job to my kids for these 
reasons. So we have to do better.
    I know that as a nurse practitioner, housing is certainly a 
component of healthcare. So when I think of nutrition, I think 
of I want troops that have good physical readiness, good mental 
health, all of the things we talk about routinely here in 
Congress, housing is certainly a component of that, so we have 
got to get it right. You said, chronic neglect and 
underfunding, I think that was kind of a perfect summary of 
what is wrong with this. And you talked about base leadership 
and how they--you know, the requests for money weren't there. I 
got so angry with our base leadership because they didn't put 
in the request. They are busy warfighting. They are busy 
training. I get it. But I think it is our job and we talked 
oversight a little bit, but to pester them, hey, what do you 
need? The deadline is coming up. What do you need? I want to 
put money in for you. We got zero dollars for NAS [Naval Air 
Station] Oceana this past year. And only 49 percent of our 
housing is livable, 49 percent. That means that 51 percent is 
not livable. And when I say livable, that is even questionable 
when we went and we saw the conditions that looked eerily 
similar to some of the pictures you posted. So we have to do 
better. I know our defense budget is limited. We just had a 
brief discussion on privatization. I have seen some of the good 
things we have done at Norfolk.
    You talked about scoring. I mean we need to change that 
scoring, the way we are doing scoring so that we can allot for 
that housing money to be going towards privatization. We can't 
do it all on the defense budget. I certainly want to prioritize 
warfighting, so we've got to think outside the box here. So you 
know--I know you said there were some things that you were--
privatization, some concerns, but do you think that is a 
direction we should be pursuing? I personally think it is a 
direction we should be pursuing, but you are the expert.
    Ms. Field. I have so many thoughts based on what you said. 
But GAO has in the past recommended that DOD explore and 
examine privatization more closely as a possible option. What 
came out of that were service-specific strategies that you 
really couldn't use them to inform policy decision making, 
which is why we are really looking forward to that DOD report 
which is overdue.
    Certainly, I think that is an option that should be 
explored. I don't, from the GAO perspective, want to make a 
policy call, but absolutely, there are benefits to 
privatization, as well as there are cons. But, as I said, the 
facilities I toured that were privatized were really 
impressive.
    Can I make one note about Oceana? Because I think it is 
important, and about Navy, in particular. And I'm sure you are 
aware of this. Condition score is zero to 100 for every 
facility or every barracks. The one in Oceana that we looked at 
has a score of 12 out of 100. That said, for 3 fiscal years in 
a row, the Navy requested zero dollars for new military 
construction for barracks.
    In one installation, one other Navy installation, the 
installation did put forward a request for funding for new 
barracks for 10 years in a row and never got it funded. So, 
that is, I think, in part, why installation commanders are 
throwing up their hands and giving up.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Well, I think it is our job in Congress to 
educate them. I mean, they change every 2 to 3 years. They are 
focused on things that need to be focused on--getting that 
mission done. So, it is our job to say, hey, we want to get you 
money, help us with how to do that.
    And the DOD accountability piece, I mean, I think Assistant 
Secretary Berger has been wonderful. She has come down a couple 
of times. So, I've really enjoyed working with her.
    I don't know if we need to--you talked about the Department 
of Defense was kind of a little less clear. So, putting some 
just people in place to make sure there is that accountability, 
in addition to Members of Congress doing our job as well.
    And then the only other comment I would have is that, you 
know, I think of other apartment complexes. Who is building 
these things initially? I know we have one at NAS, or Naval 
Station Norfolk, that $80 million and it is less than 20 years 
old, covered in black mold. And it is on the demo list.
    That is another thing; we need to increase funding for 
demolition. I'm sick of looking at these buildings that we are 
not going to be able to restore. But just making sure that we 
are building quality products. I think we are not building 
quality products, and that is leading to a lot of these issues.
    And I'm out of time, or I would go on for about another 
hour. Thank you.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mrs. Kiggans. I would like to 
piggyback on something you said. Because there is a point you 
are making, or we are making, that commanders at these 
installations worry about fighting wars and combat readiness, 
and all that. And that is so true. But as an installation 
commander, you have got folks that they are in charge of the 
installation, civil engineering and all these facilities, and 
then you also at the headquarters, you have two-stars and 
three-star level leadership that is supposed to be overseeing 
this.
    I would just like to submit again, yes, we have got to win 
wars. We have got to make sure we are ready to fight and win. 
But it is also a responsibility to make sure these facilities 
are serving our men and women who are there.
    And so, this goes back to a leadership issue in my view. I 
just wanted to add in because somebody took their eyes off the 
ball here, bottom line.
    So, with that, Ms. Jacobs from California.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Ms. Field, great to see you. I first want to talk about 
this funding of barracks. As you mentioned, barracks are 
competing against other facilities funding. The fiscal year 
2022 NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] included a 
provision that required the military to make investments in the 
improvement of unaccompanied military housing using FSRM 
[facilities sustainment, restoration, and modernization] funds 
in an amount equal to 5 percent of the estimated replacement 
cost of the total inventory of unaccompanied housing under the 
jurisdiction of that Secretary. Is this 5 percent requirement 
being met?
    Ms. Field. So, we don't know, in part, because the 
Department could not figure out how to do it. That is one of 
our recommendations, is that the Department track its funding, 
particularly FSRM funding, for barracks. So, we asked that 
question. We couldn't get an answer. In all likelihood, 
probably not. And I would encourage you to ask that at the 
second panel as well.
    Ms. Jacobs. Okay. Good to know. And based on your research, 
I'm guessing you would say it would be helpful for Congress to 
require DOD to disaggregate the funds, so we can track this 
funding?
    Ms. Field. That certainly would be one way to do it. We 
also encourage the Department to do it, even if there isn't a 
congressional requirement.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. I know you mentioned you visited the 
privatized barracks in San Diego. One of the things I hear from 
our--I represent San Diego--one of the things we hear from our 
folks there is that part of why they can be so much nicer is 
because they are doing the BAH [basic allowance for housing] 
replacement to the barracks. It is essentially fenced-off 
funding directly for the barracks that isn't actually competing 
with other funding.
    Ms. Field. Right. Those barracks, I believe the Pacific 
Beacon you are talking about was created under a pilot that 
gave the Navy authority to do that, that full BAH for that 
specific project.
    Ms. Jacobs. I also want to touch on aircraft carriers. 
Obviously, representing San Diego, we have a lot of those. And 
I know the report detailed why living on aircraft carriers can 
be difficult. Can you expand on what some of these difficulties 
are and how they compare to the living conditions for other 
junior enlisted sailors?
    Ms. Field. Yeah. In fact, I had the opportunity with my 
team in San Diego to tour one of the carriers that was in port 
and where some service members were living.
    It is, it is a rough life. It is extremely noisy because 
they are doing maintenance on the ship when it is in port. 
Oftentimes, they will not have running water. Oftentimes, there 
might not be heat or air-conditioning. We spoke with service 
members who were living on the ship, and they were pretty 
unhappy. We also toured a barge which was not much better.
    Ms. Jacobs. Good to know regarding the barge because we 
pushed hard to try and get the barge to try and alleviate some 
of the carrier conditions, but it seems like that was not 
actually an improvement?
    Ms. Field. When you are on it, you feel like you are back 
on the ship, to be honest, but it does have running water and 
heat and air-conditioning. So, it is an improvement, but it is 
not much better.
    Ms. Jacobs. Got it. Well, that is helpful. One of the NDAA 
provisions that Chair Bacon and I were able to get in this year 
is to give commanding officers the ability to grant BAH to 
junior service members when they determine it is in the best 
interest of the member and the command. And so I'm hopeful we 
will get that all the way through and at least be able to give 
some of our commanders a little more flexibility for our junior 
enlisted to be able to get into community housing, when needed.
    The last question I have is on this oversight question. You 
know, GAO found that, although each of the military departments 
is conducting inspections prior to resident occupancy, they 
have not developed clear or consistent inspection standards, 
and the military departments have not provided adequate 
inspector training.
    I know that these were recommendations from a prior GAO 
report. Can you provide an update on whether these 
recommendations have been completed?
    Ms. Field. To date, I do not believe they have been 
completed. We are expecting a letter from the Department in, I 
believe, early October that would provide us an update, but, 
thus far, no.
    Ms. Jacobs. Okay. Thank you. Well, I will look forward to 
this panel working to make sure that we are getting DOD to both 
do the disaggregated funding and spend money on barracks, but 
also do some of these other recommendations and track the 
quality of facilities in a more coherent way.
    So, thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Jacobs.
    One of the goals in this committee is to write down 
recommendations to the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] 
that we can put in the next NDAA. So, we hope to have some 
strong recommendations for the committee as a whole to execute 
in the next defense authorization bill.
    There is another Don in the room. I would like to recognize 
Mr. Davis from North Carolina.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Davis. Thanks so much, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you, Director Field, for being here today. I want 
to start by saying I associate with earlier comments that we 
must be focused on winning the fight, but as the Chair also 
indicated, leaders, if they are focused on winning the fight, 
understand you have to take care of your people. That is the 
bottom line. So, thank you, Mr. Chair.
    And that leads me into just wanting to have a greater 
understanding of the comment that I heard earlier, when I 
believe I heard there was a lack of knowledge, of understanding 
of the conditions that was actually taking place on the 
barrack. Could you please shine some light on this?
    Ms. Field. So, each facility is given a condition score 
between zero and 100, as I noted. What we found when we went 
out to installations is that those scores are really 
unreliable. So, for example, we went to a facility in the DC 
[District of Columbia] area that had a score of 86 out of 100, 
which sounds pretty good. That facility had a quarter of its 
air-conditioning broken. So, a quarter of residents had no air-
conditioning, and yet it still had an 86.
    And this happened again and again when we would go to 
installations and the scores just did not make sense. We tried 
to figure out what is going on; why is this a problem? And we 
identified a few issues.
    One, the frequency of assessments was likely not enough. 
Right now, the DOD standard is every 5 years. Consistently, 
installation commanders told us 5 years is not frequent enough. 
In some cases, they weren't even doing them that frequently. So 
that is a problem.
    Another one is the number of systems that they are 
assessing. There are 13 building systems that they are supposed 
to be assessing. In some cases, they don't always do that.
    Another is the training of the inspectors. They may not 
have training. There is no standard right now. Some services, 
like the Air Force, do have standard. They hire personnel with 
expertise to do the inspections. Some services do not.
    Some take a centralized model, where the same team will go 
out and inspect various barracks across the services; others 
have a decentralized model. So, we have a recommendation to DOD 
to reassess everything from requirements for frequency, to 
standards, to inspector training.
    Mr. Davis. And I would follow up on that by simply saying, 
so even if we throw all the money at it, but we still never 
keep up; there is no consistency on how we are assessing the 
situation, how does that help us?
    Ms. Field. That's right. That is why so many of our 
recommendations are toward getting greater consistency across 
the Department and better information. Because I think there 
always will be resource limitations, but if you have better 
information, you can make smarter, more targeted decisions.
    Mr. Davis. Let me ask another question. We are talking 
about readiness. This has come up several times. And without 
any doubt in, I think, anyone's mind that's thinking about 
this, because this is so unacceptable, there must be an impact, 
but clearly, data is all over the place. But was there any data 
that exists whatsoever that would really help us understand how 
this is impacting us from a readiness perspective?
    Ms. Field. Data, no. I wish there were. But, certainly, 
that is something that we heard about. I will just give you two 
examples.
    We heard from residents of barracks that, because they are 
so uncomfortable in their barracks rooms, they have a hard time 
sleeping. They are tired on the job. They don't feel like they 
can perform and focus on the work that they have to do.
    We also heard from first sergeants who are responsible for 
training these junior enlisted service members, and they say, 
they told us, specifically, that sometimes they take it easier 
on them in training. They will cut back the length of runs or 
the specific drills they are going to put their service members 
through because they know they are going home to the barracks 
at night. So, clear readiness implications there.
    Mr. Davis. The last thing I would like to raise, which 
really resonated to me, because it is connected to readiness as 
well, is specifically talking about the concerns around 
nutrition. Could you address that just a little bit more? 
Because this is not just a matter of not having the access to 
certain accommodations in a room, but I think there is a 
broader readiness part of this. If you could speak towards 
this?
    Ms. Field. Absolutely. And I should note we have an audit 
ongoing right now looking at food and nutrition more broadly, 
and that report will be coming out early next year.
    In terms of the barracks, it was one of the most common 
complaints that we heard. It actually surprised us how often it 
came up. And service members do want to be able to cook for 
themselves. One first sergeant told us that when he moved out 
of the barracks and could finally cook for himself, he lost 20 
pounds because he was able to cook for himself.
    And access to the dining facilities is part of it. So, 
sometimes, if you are working a night shift, you don't have 
necessarily access to the DFAC [dining facility] when you need 
it, because you are sleeping during the day and it can be hard; 
walking distance to the DFAC can also be an issue, operating 
hours of a DFAC. So, a lot of issues there, and we look forward 
to reporting out on that.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
    Mr. Davis. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Bacon. I want to take a moment to say thank you for 
your testimony today, but also the GAO for what they have done. 
I think you have highlighted something that this committee 
knows we have got to focus on. And I think the moms and dads 
all over this country appreciate this because it will make 
things better for their sons and daughters and those who defend 
our country.
    And some of my key takeaways here is this isn't just a 
money problem, which it is and we need to know definitively 
what is it going to cost to get this right; but it is also 
policy, accountability. So, there is a whole, I guess, 
smorgasbord of stuff that we need to work on here, just not 
money.
    So, thank you so much. We appreciate your time.
    Ms. Field. Thank you.
    Mr. Bacon. With that, we are going to go into about a 2- or 
3-minute recess. We are going to switch to panel two. And we 
will come back in about 2 or 3 minutes.
    Thank you.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Bacon. Okay. I want to welcome our second panel and our 
witnesses. Thank you for being here.
    We have Ms. Carla Coulson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of 
the Army for Installations, Housing, and Partnerships; Mr. 
Robert Thompson, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment; and Mr. Robert 
Moriarty, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for 
Installations, and somebody I served with back at Ramstein.
    Each witness will have the opportunity to present his or 
her testimony, and each member will have an opportunity to 
question the witnesses for 5 minutes.
    Your written comments and statements will be made part of 
the hearing record.
    And with that, Ms. Coulson, you may make your opening 
statement.

 STATEMENT OF CARLA COULSON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE 
 ARMY FOR INSTALLATIONS, HOUSING, AND PARTNERSHIPS, DEPARTMENT 
                          OF THE ARMY

    Ms. Coulson. Thank you, Chairman Bacon. I think 
Congresswoman Escobar isn't here, but thank you also to the 
distinguished members of the House Armed Services Committee 
Quality of Life Panel. Thank you for inviting us here today to 
testify on our, the Army's, unaccompanied and privatized family 
housing programs.
    As the Army's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Installations, 
Housing, and Partnerships, I hope to have the opportunity to 
share with you the Army's progress, objectives, goals, 
challenges, and focus on these very essential programs.
    Quality of life, and in particular the opportunity for all 
soldiers and their families to live in safe, adequate, quality 
housing, remains at the very top of the Army's senior leader 
priorities, as it has been for a number of years now. Army 
leadership remains steadfast and purposefully committed to 
improving the Army's housing posture, fully recognizing the 
linkage between the quality of our housing and our ability to 
recruit and retain a ready force.
    Our commitment is evidenced by our continued, what we 
believe to be, high investments in unaccompanied housing and in 
the owned government Army housing inventory, which is mostly 
located overseas, as well as our continued focus on improving 
oversight of operation of our privatized housing portfolio.
    Under the Army's leadership and direction, we have made 
great strides in executing privatized housing-related actions 
directed by several NDAAs, beginning with the Military Housing 
Privatization Reform of 2020. And we have also implemented 
dozens of recommendations made by the GAO, the DOD and Army 
Inspectors General, the Army Audit Agency, as well as an 
independent third-party auditor that we hire annually to review 
20 percent of our privatized housing projects.
    The Army is proud to fully implement the Tenant Bill of 
Rights in September of 2021. This was a foundational step 
towards reestablishing trust with our families.
    And the Army has also included the provisions of the fiscal 
year 2020 NDAA reforms in our ground lease template. This 
template is the foundational legal document that governs our 
privatized housing projects. All new or modified Army ground 
leases will contain statutory language that further helped to 
strengthen project-level oversight.
    Although we have made great strides in improving the 
privatized housing program, we must build on our progress. We 
very much appreciate and have carefully considered the GAO's 
recent reports and have moved immediately to address the 
reports' recommendations. Our focus going forward is to 
continue to provide soldiers and their families with safe, 
quality, and habitable housing, while also continuing ever 
vigilant oversight of the privatized housing program through 
enforcing standards, holding providers accountable, and 
ensuring long-term project sustainability and financial 
viability.
    The Army is also fully committed to improving soldier 
quality of life by addressing deferred maintenance and 
underinvestment in unaccompanied housing that was referred to 
in the previous panel. Even before GAO issued its initial 
report, and we had seen the draft earlier this year, in the 
fall of 2022 the Army took the unprecedented step of inspecting 
every room in every barracks building, of which there are over 
6,700 buildings, to remedy life, health, and safety issues 
identified.
    Going forward, we are committing to spending at least--at 
least--a billion dollars a year to improve barracks across the 
Army. We have also developed an in-depth barracks resourcing 
strategy that I think was the number one recommendation from 
Ms. Field. And this takes a holistic approach for improving 
single soldier living conditions.
    Recommendations from the recently released GAO report on 
military barracks will assist us in further refining our focus 
as we continue to work initiatives to improve housing 
conditions for our single junior enlisted population.
    We are also very conscious of the need to address the 
requirements of our Reserve Components. A primary concern for 
both the Army Guard and Reserve is their ability to replace 
poor and failing training barracks inventories, where the 
average age of this inventory is more than 50 years. Both 
components anticipate increasing barracks deficits, space 
deficits, as these older facilities become uninhabitable.
    We look forward to working productively with this panel, 
with the Readiness Subcommittees of the Armed Services 
Committees, to improve the quality of life for our treasured 
soldiers and their families. And I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Coulson can be found in the 
Appendix on page 59.]
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you very much.
    I now recognize Mr. Thompson.

  STATEMENT OF ROBERT E. THOMPSON, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT 
     SECRETARY OF THE NAVY FOR ENERGY, INSTALLATIONS, AND 
              ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

    Mr. Thompson. Thank you, Chairman Bacon, distinguished 
members of the panel. Thanks for inviting me here today to 
testify on the Department of the Navy's unaccompanied housing 
and privatized family housing.
    First, I would like to thank the Government Accountability 
Office for its attention and focus in these areas; for its 
recommendations on how we can improve the Department of the 
Navy's unaccompanied housing portfolio in this report; for 
their previous and continued work on military housing 
privatization; and for Ms. Field's testimony here today.
    I'm proud to have served more than 20 years in the United 
States Navy, both enlisted and later as an officer. And I'm 
humbled to have the privilege to continue to serve sailors, 
Marines, and their families in my current capacity.
    I have lived aboard ships, in berthing barges, in barracks, 
and in family housing. The quality of service, both the quality 
of work environment for our sailors and Marines and the quality 
of life that our service members deserve are a personal issue 
for me.
    While the Department has made meaningful, tangible progress 
in improving the quality and livability in our privatized 
housing, thanks in part to GAO highlighting those issues years 
ago, it is clear today we have significant work ahead in our 
unaccompanied housing to provide safe, clean, reliable, 
comfortable, and dignified places for our sailors and Marines 
to call home. We would expect nothing less for ourselves, and I 
expect nothing less from myself.
    I would like to thank Congress and each member of this 
panel for your resolute support of our service members, and I 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Thompson can be found in the 
Appendix on page 78.]
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.
    I now recognize Mr. Moriarty.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT E. MORIARTY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF 
  THE AIR FORCE FOR INSTALLATIONS, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

    Mr. Moriarty. Thank you, Chairman Bacon and distinguished 
members. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 
Department of the Air Force's Military Housing Privatization 
Initiative, or MHPI, program.
    I lived in five different government-owned homes during my 
28-year military career. All have been torn down and replaced. 
I left my family twice during deployments there. And so, I 
understand how important housing is for our members, especially 
when deployed and your loved ones are back home.
    I came back to Federal service to serve our Nation and view 
my responsibility to take care of our members and their 
families as a sacred trust. Taking care of our airmen, 
guardians, and their families is a fundamental responsibility 
and commitment of the entire Department of the Air Force. Our 
ability to provide safe and habitable housing for our members 
is a critical component of their quality of life and greatly 
impacts our ability to recruit and retain the people we need to 
lead the Department and accelerate the transformation our 
Secretary has us on to meet our pacing challenge.
    While we have made significant changes and improvements in 
our privatized housing, we continually evaluate the oversight 
and needs of our airmen, guardians, and their families to 
update our policies and take action accordingly.
    We empower our tenants and commanders to address housing 
challenges at our installations when needed and take action to 
hold our privatized housing project owners accountable. 
Additionally, we exercise senior-level governance and program 
oversight to provide housing for our members--housing they 
deserve.
    We continue our efforts to improve our privatized housing 
portfolio to implement the most recent actions, audit actions, 
that the GAO identified. And I, too, would like to thank the 
GAO for their continued partnership. I think, in MHPI, the 
improvements we made, in large part due to their first report; 
the second report, I'm glad to see they recognize some of the 
improvements, but that there is still work to do.
    I also thank them for their recent report on the 
unaccompanied dormitories that we have and our training dorms, 
because that, too, is an area, as clearly dictated earlier, 
that we need to focus on.
    Similarly, we thank the House Armed Services Committee for 
the MHPI reforms set forth in the 2020 through 2023 National 
Defense Authorization Act. We have made significant progress to 
implement reforms and enhance our oversight and hold our MHPI 
companies accountable. But as I have outlined in my written 
testimony, we still have more to do.
    We continue to maintain resident councils to foster 
communication between residents, installation, and project 
owner leadership, and we use that feedback for action plans to 
improve resident experiences. Clearly, we can apply those same 
techniques to our dormitories and tech training dorms.
    We also need to ensure that our projects remain financially 
viable. As was mentioned earlier by the GAO, that continues to 
be a concern.
    And we also continue to work with communities. Eighty 
percent of our members live off the installations, thereabouts. 
And so, we need to continue to work with those communities to 
provide safe, affordable housing for our members.
    In conclusion, I would like to communicate that the 
Department of the Air Force is committed to providing safe and 
habitable housing for our airmen, guardians, and their 
families, and our unaccompanied airmen living in our dorms. Our 
leaders are fully engaged, and only through partnership with 
our privatized owners, local communities, and installations can 
we effectively achieve that end.
    I look forward to working with you on our mutual goal to 
address quality of life for our members, and look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Moriarty can be found in the 
Appendix on page 86.]
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you very much.
    I want to put a little more emphasis on military housing, 
but before I do that, I would like you to each maybe address 
the unaccompanied housing. The report from the GAO was 
appalling. How did we get there? Who is responsible? What 
happened?
    I will start off with Ms. Coulson.
    Ms. Coulson. Thank you for your question, Chairman Bacon. I 
have been working this portfolio for a very long period of time 
now. And I think it is through many years of not looking 
closely at the deferred maintenance, at investments. And so 
now, we are, in effect, playing catchup.
    And this is not--the report, frankly, was not news to the 
Army. We are well aware, and our leadership--from our 
Secretary, our Chief of Staff, on down--are focusing very 
clearly on quality of life, and barracks is a piece of that. We 
have done a lot of work already.
    And I know that you have probably heard the testimony 
previously. We have, over the last several years, committed 
more than a billion dollars a year. We have done a barracks 
resourcing strategy. So, we are looking at how do we spend our 
dollars in the most effective manner.
    When you see our budget that comes over in February, I 
believe you will see a multiyear investment strategy that looks 
at providing additional sustainment dollars. As Ms. Field 
pointed out, we need to sustain the inventory we have.
    Just as an example, we have got in the Army, through our 
modeling efforts, we can see that we have 300 permanent party 
barracks buildings that are in poor and failing shape. Across 
our fiscal year defense program, from 2024 to 2028, we can 
address 113 of those barracks buildings. But, at the same time, 
if we don't fully sustain, we will have 110 barracks, existing 
barracks buildings, that will move from good or adequate into 
the poor and failing category. So, we don't make much progress 
unless we can ensure that we are doing preventative maintenance 
and fully sustaining our inventory.
    Mr. Bacon. I will just point out, though, again, we have 
taken the services' budgets, we have added to it. So, there is 
a disconnect here between each service's budget request, and we 
are adding to it, and yet, it has not been enough. So, it 
doesn't add up, would be my point.
    But, Mr. Thompson.
    Mr. Thompson. Yeah. Thank you, Chairman. I will go back to 
Ms. Field's testimony. I can't speak to leadership decisions in 
the past. I have been blessed to be in this position for 9 
months now in an acting, and now full-time capacity. So, I will 
go back to Ms. Field's comments.
    I think there needs to be a realization that we are 
approaching kind of facility criticality maybe from the wrong 
angle in the Department. We have typically looked at mission-
critical facilities, and in resource-constrained environments, 
the bias is to put resources towards the most critical 
installation facilities.
    The reality is, the introduction of a single sailor, 
service member into a facility makes it, by definition, 
mission-critical. The fact that these are their homes makes it 
mission-critical.
    So, in a resource-constrained environment, I think our 
overall approach to how to apply resources--those that we apply 
ourselves, those that the Congress, thankfully, has helped us 
with--there needs to be a clean-eyed look at that.
    The second part is standards that Ms. Field hit on, yeah, 
there are 13 technical standards. Sometimes we use all 13; 
sometimes we use 10, 9, et cetera. This is a conversation we 
just started with OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] 
since the GAO report came out. You know, there needs to be a 
standard for livability, right? There needs to be a plain-eyed, 
clear-eyed view of what the standard is for this place to be 
dignified, safe, and comfortable.
    So, I do think we have taken our expertise in facilities 
and just moved it right on over into, essentially, barracks, 
and then we expect that to serve us well there. And again, even 
if we trained everyone, even if we had consistency in 
application, I think we are still missing something there in 
terms of the fundamental, technical----
    Mr. Bacon. I have got about a minute left. I just want to 
let Mr. Moriarty also speak.
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Bacon. And I will yield.
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Moriarty. Chairman Bacon, I'll go quickly. I think the 
Air Force, we did lose the bubble. We used to have a dorm focus 
fund when you and I served in USAFE [U.S. Air Forces in Europe-
Air Forces Africa]. We went away from that. And when we 
centralized a lot of our installation management, when we put 
all the money together, we went to a worst-first, or, then went 
to a condition-based thing and prioritized everything together, 
looking at the best.
    We have gone back now, back to the past, and we now have a 
focus fund, if you will, where we set aside the amount of funds 
we think we need to keep the dorms good and accelerate that. 
So, they do compete within there from the top line, but then 
they compete amongst themselves. So we can target our 
investments at our worst dorms first and where it is needed in 
the portfolio.
    So, I will keep it at that, Mr. Chair, and----
    Mr. Bacon. Yes, well, I just want to--when I was the 
commander at these two installations, I had four-stars walking 
around our dorms. If I would have had it that way, I would have 
got fired. I just don't understand what happened over 10 years, 
12 years, where this fell off the radar. And we have got to put 
it back on the radar, and it is mission-critical and essential.
    But, with that, recognizing Ms. Jacobs, who is serving as 
the ranking member.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for being 
here.
    First, I wanted to actually follow up on a question I had 
asked Ms. Field. Why was GAO unable to find out if the services 
were meeting the 5 percent requirement of using FSRM for 
barracks?
    Mr. Thompson. I will go. Yes, I took a note to myself. We 
definitively within the Department of the Navy know that we are 
meeting the 5 percent minimum investment floor of the plant 
replacement value for the facilities. I think, Navy and Marine 
Corps combined, that is a little over $360 million, admittedly, 
modestly above the 5 percent floor. So, that information is 
available strictly from a restoration, modernization, and 
sustainment perspective. And so, how that wasn't made available 
through the Department and to Ms. Field, I take that for 
action.
    Ms. Coulson. And I agree, we also have done our homework 
and our calculations. And I think there was between the 
military departments a little bit of a difference of opinion on 
how we define plant replacement value. I don't know that we 
ever came to any conclusion. But the Army feels, also, that we 
have met that requirement and have provided that information to 
OSD.
    Thank you, Ms. Jacobs.
    Ms. Jacobs. Okay. Thank you. And, you know, one of the 
things we hear is that part of the problem is that this funding 
is competing against other FSRM funding. Would it be helpful if 
Congress mandated this funding be fenced off only for barracks? 
Or, I guess, why has the Department been unable to actually 
just do that themselves?
    Mr. Moriarty. Yes, I would start with, for the Department 
of the Air Force, personally and professionally, I like the 
flexibility within the O&M [operations and maintenance] account 
to be able to lean into barracks when we want to. I don't think 
it would help us to put it in, like, say, the housing account, 
where that is also restricted and it is competing against 
housing.
    I think leaving it where it is allows us the flexibility 
within the departments to do that. There may be difference of 
opinion in the Department, but I think for max flexibility for 
us, we like that.
    And I would just like to say that we do know what our 5 
percent floor is. We are meeting that within the Air Force.
    Ms. Jacobs. Okay. Well, we all like flexibility, but I 
think we are, clearly, seeing that the barracks are not being 
invested in. So, maybe flexibility is not the only priority 
here.
    Ms. Coulson. Thank you for that question. I do have a 
couple of comments.
    As I allude to, we are looking at how we might fund 
sustainment in the future. Should we go to a higher percentage, 
we will definitely issue guidance to the field that tells them 
how to spend those dollars.
    I also would like to say that, within our program, you 
might not see a lot of projects that are military construction 
projects for barracks. We primarily use MILCON [military 
construction] for deficit, for additional spaces that we need 
for things like stationing actions.
    But I will say that about 75 percent of our restoration and 
modernization program is already dedicated to barracks. As a 
matter of fact, if you talk with the Army G-3 [Plans and 
Operations office], their concern would be more along the lines 
of having dollars available to take care of readiness 
facilities.
    So, it is very much a balance and how we work within, in my 
case the Army, to ensure that we are able to balance quality-
of-life requirements with those with modernization, as well as 
readiness. But we already have a significant contribution to 
quality of life for barracks.
    Mr. Thompson. Yeah, Congresswoman, I will go quickly.
    To your point, flexibility to do what, right? Flexibility 
to run barracks that result in what the GAO found.
    So, I think the threshold or a floor that the Congress has 
put in place is helpful. My personal experience has been that 
absolute fencing can be problematic, not from a decision space 
perspective, but I think folks kind of back off of fenced 
accounts and don't challenge themselves or assumptions with 
what is in those appropriations.
    And lastly, to the point about privatized barracks, you 
know, that essentially commits us to a ``should fund'' for what 
``right'' looks like, and by definition, becomes a ``must 
fund'' in the MILPERS [military personnel] accounts, which 
produces the outcomes that Ms. Field saw in the privatized 
barracks.
    Ms. Jacobs. Thank you. And really quickly with my last 40 
seconds, Mr. Thompson, I know the Navy has a process in which 
you issue letters of concern to housing partners. How many of 
these letters have been issued and have any of them resulted in 
cure notices or defaults?
    And, Mr. Chair, I would like to enter into the record two 
articles about some of the issues we are having in San Diego 
following more than 50 lawsuits taken out by military families.
    Mr. Bacon. Without objection, so ordered.
    [The information referred to is retained in the committee 
files and can be viewed upon request.]
    Mr. Thompson. Yeah, Congressman, I will answer quickly.
    To my knowledge, there has been one such letter of caution 
issued to date, and I am not aware of a removal action based on 
it.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Jacobs.
    I will recognize Mrs. Kiggans.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to ask a 
couple more questions about the privatized family housing. And 
just reading the GAO report, so we have 99 percent of our 
family housing is now privatized. So, we are almost all the way 
there. So, it has come a long way.
    And what were the biggest challenges of implementation when 
we made that decision of we are going to go privatized? I think 
it has been a work in progress, and I have only been here a 
limited time really paying attention. But what did that look 
like, that transfer, that transformation?
    Ms. Coulson. Well, I will jump in, Congresswoman, and go 
first.
    This was a long time ago for the Army. Our projects are now 
approaching 20, 25, even 30 years, in length. And our oldest 
project is Fort Carson.
    But the transition goes along the lines of moving an owned 
inventory to a privatized housing provider, putting in place a 
ground lease. Some of those original ground leases that we have 
still exist. So, we are just now in the process of looking at 
changing the ground leases to include the statutory guidance 
that was provided back in 2020, to include things like 
enforcement provisions, as well as things like the Davis-Bacon 
Act provisions.
    So, we are looking now at strengthening these ground 
leases. We have learned a lot in the last 25 years. We have 
learned, for example, that perhaps we didn't get it right in 
the beginning with respect to the amount of equity that we put 
into these projects.
    And our projects are structured all a little bit 
differently. Ours are more similar than the Air Force. But we 
did in the very beginning attempt to provide an inventory to 
that provider that was a healthy inventory. However, we have 
19,000 legacy homes that are older, older housing stock that 
are still out there that we need to take a look at how we 
renovate, how we recapitalize.
    I will turn this over to you.
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, yes, I will go, I will go quickly.
    I think, consistent with what Ms. Coulson said, I think the 
first period was marked with the actual effort of taking the 
government-owned inventory, getting the land leases done; 
essentially, a significant recapitalization effort of those 
houses.
    I will go back to the GAO reports. I think what we found 
was, once that effort was done and they were now in the hands 
of the private companies, there was almost a sentiment that 
they had been outsourced at that point, and hence, maybe the 
lack of oversight that was required. And again, GAO highlighted 
that several years ago, and I think we will talk today about 
much of the progress we have made since then.
    I do just want to offer, as we talk about privatized 
housing, and then the possibility of privatized barracks, that 
we have learned lessons about not disconnecting and maintaining 
our oversight and accountability. I think we apply those today 
in the unaccompanied barracks, and I think the scale is a 
completely different issue as well--several tens of thousands 
of homes versus currently four buildings, and, ideally, a lot 
more.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Yes. Great. Thank you.
    Mr. Thompson. Thank you, ma'am.
    Mr. Moriarty. Congresswoman, I would say that our later 
projects, we applied the lessons that we learned on our earlier 
ones. We did it over a decade span or so. And the problems that 
we are having now financially with our projects are the earlier 
projects, where they were just poorer deals for a bunch of 
reasons.
    I think a lot of the lessons we learned could be applied to 
any future privatization. I would agree with him that, when you 
privatize, I think commanders took the eye off the ball. We 
have worked to strengthen our commander involvement. And to 
Chairman Bacon's point, we have a four-star, twice-a-year 
gathering where we look at or we have a housing council at the 
four-star level with them looking at it. We have a two-star 
level.
    We also empower our installation commanders through 
training. We give them what we call an HP101 [Housing Plan 101] 
and we hold them accountable. I think, for the most part, 
commanders felt like it wasn't commanders' business anymore, 
and that was made clear in the 2018-2019 business.
    So, what did we learn? We learned that, you know, by 
financially financing these things, doesn't mean you can walk 
away from the deals. You still have a part.
    Mrs. Kiggans. And also, reading the GAO report, there are 
14 private housing companies, then, that provide this 
privatized family housing. Does that work okay? Is it 
disjointed at all? Is there enough standardization? Is that a 
good model, where we have lots of different companies doing 
different things?
    Because I just want to take our lessons learned from this 
decade that we have learned good things and apply it to 
unaccompanied housing and how we can, you know, if we do go 
that route, implement it correctly.
    Ms. Coulson. I think there is more standardization now than 
there was previously. There is an organization, the Military 
Housing Association, that tries to pull these providers 
together and get them to see things the same way.
    We are working right now on a quality assurance/quality 
control plan--they are, with us--to use across our six. The 
Army has got six providers. So, we are looking.
    It is important to standardize and we are looking to do 
that in a better way. And I think the legislation from 2020 on 
has helped.
    Mrs. Kiggans. Okay. My time has expired.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mrs. Kiggans.
    I will recognize Ms. Strickland from Washington State.
    Ms. Strickland. Thank you. And Ms. Jacobs pointed out to me 
that our two Dons are Don Davis and Don Bacon, ``Davis-Bacon.''
    [Laughter.]
    Ms. Strickland. So, thank you to our witnesses for being 
here today. And I especially want to thank Ms. Coulson. You 
have been so accessible with my office and my staff for the 
issues on JBLM [Joint Base Lewis-McChord]. So I want to commend 
you for your leadership and just always having an open door and 
being there for us.
    So, I want to talk a bit about being creative in how we 
address the housing supply. So, regarding to solutions to 
addressing the housing backlog at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, I 
think that creativity is important here.
    And one idea that I'm starting to hear about is the 
enhanced use lease [EUL]. So, if you could, number one, explain 
in layman's terms what that means? And then really answer the 
question, if the garrison identified some land for an enhanced 
use lease for housing development, is it required for the 
military housing provider to develop the project or can another 
private developer use that lease?
    Ms. Coulson. Thank you for that question, Congresswoman 
Strickland. And I enjoy working with your staff as well very 
much.
    I would like to talk about EULs. We have never used an 
enhanced use lease for housing.
    Ms. Strickland. Okay.
    Ms. Coulson. But it is a real estate--the statute is 10 USC 
2667--it is a real estate statute. We have--if we have got 
property that is not excess to a military department, to the 
Army, but we don't have necessarily immediate use for it, we 
can use that property for other purposes.
    So, we have to take a look at that property. We have to 
understand the environmental condition of the property. We 
would have to do--we would have to comply with NEPA [National 
Environmental Policy Act], and then we would look at what we 
might be able to use that for.
    It is not necessary that we would use the privatized 
housing provider that serves JBLM at this moment. We would 
compete. We would be able to compete for the use of that 
property. And then, we would receive in-kind consideration for 
the use, as part of an enhanced use lease. So that is the way 
it works.
    We do have several. The Air Force has many and may be able 
to help inform this discussion.
    But if you have got any other questions, I would be happy 
to sit down with your staff and run through this with them.
    Ms. Strickland. All right. Well, Mr. Moriarty, can you talk 
a bit about what the Air Force is doing and how that has worked 
out?
    Mr. Moriarty. Yes, ma'am. So, typically, you are right. 
Typically, our clauses say we don't compete with them. But in a 
market like that, it would work. We have enhanced use leases 
like down at Eglin [Air Force Base], where we have mixed use. 
So, we might have apartments on top development.
    We are working one right now in F.E. Warren [Air Force 
Base], it will be another mixed use. It is in the process of 
negotiations, but that would produce housing.
    The win there is, while we are not involved in who gets 
assigned there and how it works, it would be a market-driven 
rent, right? But it helps in those communities, too, where, 
especially at F.E. Warren, where they lack available, 
affordable housing, it is a win/win for the community and it.
    And so, I would be glad to share more information, as you 
would like, ma'am. But that is a possibility to increase 
housing availability where there is a developer that can do it.
    Most of the time, what we found at Altus Air Force Base, is 
where the State and the city put money aside for developers, 
they have been able to create affordable housing that our 
airmen would want to live in, but they had to put money into it 
to make that development happen.
    That wasn't on our land, but it is similar to what you are 
talking about. In most of these deals, we can offer land. We 
have to get fair market value.
    Ms. Strickland. Yes.
    Mr. Moriarty. And we have to compete it. But that is not a 
very high bar, quite frankly. A lot of our land where we are, 
unlike the Navy, is not what I would call expensive land in 
those areas comparatively. Over.
    Ms. Strickland. No, great, and I love--as a former mayor, I 
love the idea of a mixed use because you are often building 
housing and the new building amenities with it as well. So, it 
improves the quality of life. So, our office is definitely 
interested in learning more about that.
    And thank you for your testimony.
    I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Ms. Strickland.
    I recognize now Mr. Alford from Missouri.
    Mr. Alford. Thank you, General Bacon. I just want to say, 
first off, how much I am honored to be on this panel. I just 
think this is long overdue. And I'm not a veteran, but I have 
been to Fort Leonard Wood. I have seen the barracks there. I 
have seen the issues. Ms. Coulson and I talked about this 
yesterday on the phone. We have got to get this right.
    I don't know about you, General Bacon, but I have 
constituents calling me now. It is like we are heading towards 
a shutdown. Our military is not going to get paid, but we are 
still going to fund and pay the Ukrainian military.
    And this report comes out of the GAO this week with these 
horrible pictures of living conditions that our service men and 
women are living in. It is just not right. And I am so glad 
that we are concentrating on bringing up this quality of life, 
so we can instill pride once again in our military and boost 
our recruitment numbers. So, thank you all for being here 
today.
    I want to wrap my head around something, because I noticed 
the 2021 NDAA housing reform provisions, section 2818, requires 
the Department to expand the Uniform Code of Basic Standards 
for privatized military housing. I am proud to say that we 
worked with Senator Hawley's office in getting $50 million for 
Fort Leonard Wood for privatized housing.
    There are some very big needs there. And as you know, that 
base trains 80,000 personnel a year. So, it is very important 
for these families to have some sense of pride in where they 
live. We are not building the Taj Mahal, but we are building a 
nice place where families can have each other over and invest 
in community with one another.
    Is there not a standard for barracks right now, Ms. 
Coulson?
    Ms. Coulson. We do have standards. All of us have 
standards. Our standards may be different, however.
    Mr. Alford. Why? Why are there different standards?
    Ms. Coulson. Well, I think, left to our own devices, 
Congressman Alford, we will do what we feel is best for our 
military department.
    And I will give you an example. We have just established a 
new construction standard that is great. It is four bedrooms, 
two bathrooms, a full kitchen, a full living room.
    I don't know what the construction standards are for the 
Air Force and the Navy, my counterparts. But this is a decision 
that Army leadership made, and we would like to be able to 
provide that level of standard to our soldiers, our single 
soldiers.
    So, we all have standards. And we can sit down and talk 
about what our standards are. I think that there is--the HASC-R 
[House Armed Services Committee Readiness Subcommittee] is 
undertaking a look during this NDAA that is being discussed 
right now at asking us to standardize across the military 
departments. I am an advocate for that.
    Mr. Alford. I would like to see that as well.
    You say we need or you need a billion dollars a year to get 
this right. How many total buildings are we talking about? You 
said 6,700. Is that the total number of barracks there are in 
the DOD?
    Ms. Coulson. So, for the Army--and I can only speak for the 
Army--it is a matter of scale. I think the memo that you 
received last night said there were 9,000 barracks buildings. 
The Army has 6,700 of them.
    Mr. Alford. Okay.
    Ms. Coulson. And 3,900 are training and the rest are 
permanent----
    Mr. Alford. So, of those 6,700, what percentage is not up 
to a standard that you would want to live in?
    Ms. Coulson. We consider 23 percent of that number to be in 
poor and failing condition.
    Mr. Alford. And currently, there are service members living 
in 23 percent of the 6,700 barracks that are below standard or 
failing?
    Ms. Coulson. I don't know--I don't know that they are 
livable or habitable, and many are collective training. The 
ones that--well, Representative Escobar is not here, but those 
that she talked about, for example, at Fort Bliss that are used 
by the Army Guard, the Army Reserve, during annual training.
    So, for permanent party--permanent party, if I can just 
talk about that, the number is smaller. It is 18 percent of our 
permanent party barracks are in poor and failing----
    Mr. Alford. So, at a billion dollars a year, if we came up 
with this money, how long would it take, considering the 
deferred maintenance on these other buildings we are going to 
dip down into the substandard category, how long will it take 
to right the ship?
    Ms. Coulson. Well, we already spend over a billion dollars 
a year on our barracks. When we looked at--and this is data 
from modeling--when we looked at what it would cost to 
recapitalize our permanent party inventory that I just 
described, the bill for that inventory alone is $6.5 billion, 
in addition to what we are already----
    Mr. Alford. I am almost out of time.
    At the rate, though, of a billion a year, how long would it 
take to right the ship, to get it right, no substandard 
housing?
    Ms. Coulson. So, we look across the POM [Project Objective 
Memorandum] 2025-2029, it would take about an additional $6.5 
billion--and that is just from a modeled number--to be able to 
restore and modernize our inventory to 100 percent.
    Mr. Alford. I have gone over. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
yield back.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Alford. We only have the room for 
about 5 more minutes. So, I will try to wrap up.
    But I just saw the headline just came out from Stars and 
Stripes: ``Sewage, Rats, and Crime: Our Service Members Deserve 
Better.'' Not good. And I hope our service chiefs are taking 
this personally. They need to. To me, it is a leadership 
problem and a funding problem. I get that. We are part of the 
solution here. But it is unacceptable to have that kind of 
headline. That is what our people are reading today all over 
the country.
    I have got a request, but not to be answered today. I would 
love to sit down with whoever the experts are to understand how 
do we determine housing allowance. I have had more feedback 
from people that it is a mystery. You know, it sounds like some 
people with ``super calculators'' behind a closed door. But it 
seems like it works in some of our areas, but other areas it 
appears to be woefully underestimated, like in Washington, DC, 
area, as an example. I have heard the same in Hawaii and San 
Diego.
    So, I would love to just understand it better to see if we 
can put a better oversight on that or not. I just don't know if 
there is an issue there.
    And maybe one last question from me. How would each of you 
describe, if you do it briefly, characterize the financial 
health of your housing, military housing projects? How many of 
them you have had to refinance by bringing in additional 
funding? If you just give us a little sense how each service is 
doing there, I would be grateful.
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, Chairman. For the Department of the 
Navy, I think our overall financial health across the partners 
is healthy. We do have a few challenge projects, particularly 
our Marine Corps projects down in the Carolinas, largely as a 
result of Hurricane Florence and some of the effect on the 
inventory there and occupancy. But the bottom line is we have 
had none that have gone to refinancing or restructuring.
    Mr. Bacon. Thank you.
    Ms. Coulson. Just very quickly, I think we are happy with 
the short-term financial viability of our projects. It is the 
long term. It is, what do we do over the next 25 years to 
address the needed recapitalization of our privatized inventory 
that we struggle with?
    Mr. Bacon. We welcome your feedback in how we can assist 
there. That is another area that we have got to look at.
    Mr. Moriarty.
    Mr. Moriarty. Sir, every year we do a financial check of 
our projects. Based on this year's, with the BAH rates and 
costs and all, 12 of our 31 projects are going to require some 
kind of restructure.
    We have put money in, starting in 2022, in our budgets to 
get after those, so that we can have good debt coverage, 100 
percent sustainment, and at least 70 percent reinvestment. 
There are some things that cap us we would love to talk to you 
more about.
    Scoring was mentioned earlier. There is also other 
restrictions in law that allow us to put even more money to fix 
those projects.
    The last thing I would leave you with, Mr. Chairman, and 
for our distinguished Congressmen and women, is, you know, for 
the Air Force, none of our members should be living in a room 
that is substandard. We have a smaller problem. We only have 
about 700, 800 between our [inaudible] and our--our numbers are 
smaller, but none of our airmen or guardians should be living 
in a room. Every commander has the ability and responsibility 
to move that airman out of that room, or guardian, if it is a 
problem.
    We have dorms that need work and need money, but there 
never is an excuse from the Air Force side. Our leadership from 
the Secretary to our two Chiefs would not, they would not allow 
that. So, our installation leadership should know that. I just 
want to leave that with you, that that has not changed in our 
Air Force.
    Mr. Bacon. Well, we appreciate you being here today and 
taking our questions and giving us feedback.
    When we started this, my assumption was that we were going 
to hear primarily about the 15 percent or so of our military 
that could qualify for SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance 
Program], food insecure. So, when we were going to bases, I 
expected that to be where I would hear the most concerns.
    And actually, it was about housing. I have heard more from 
our military members and spouses or, you know, the family 
members--it has been more about the housing, the quality of 
housing, the housing allowance if they are living off-base.
    And so, I have surely have become educated and informed by 
the feedback of those on the ground and what they are going 
through. And it appears to me that Congress has an important 
role here. With the military housing, it was our injects that 
helped do a course correction here. I think we are going to 
have to do the same thing when it comes to our barracks.
    So, we are going to put a lot of focus on this. We are 
going to put a spotlight on it. But the services have also got 
to tell us what they need. To underbudget and us put more in 
than requested, and still have a deficit, there is something 
not right there. It does not add up.
    So there is an urgent need for DOD to implement oversight 
of our housing--right now, primarily our unaccompanied 
housing--and continue steadfastly in their mission to ensure 
military families in privatized housing are taken care of.
    So, with that, thank you for your time and thanks to our 
fellow members here.
    With that, we will close the hearing. Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 11:33 a.m., the panel was adjourned.]    
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                            A P P E N D I X

                           September 27, 2023
    
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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                           September 27, 2023

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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                           September 27, 2023

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                    QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BACON

    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many unaccompanied housing 
facilities in your respective military department fail to meet service 
standards for health, safety, privacy, configuration and/or general 
suitability? How many personnel currently reside in these substandard 
facilities? What is the estimated cost to remediate these substandard 
facilities to bring them up to service standards? Of this total 
estimated cost, how much did your service request in the FY24 budget 
request to bring these facilities up to service standards?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army has approximately 19% of the Army's permanent 
party barracks buildings (390 barracks) in poor (Q3) and failing (Q4) 
condition and a 15% shortfall (deficit) exists in available barracks 
bed spaces. The Army currently has an estimated modeled maintenance 
backlog of $6.5B above the FYDP24-28 requirement for all Permanent 
Party barracks. The backlog of required work for Permanent Party 
barracks has increased resulting in a corresponding decrease in 
Facility Condition Indices. In PB24, the Army requested $1.3B for 
Permanent Party Barracks Restoration, Modernization and Sustainment. A 
lack of reliable assignments' data does give us the ability to comment 
on how many soldiers are residing in the 19% of barracks buildings that 
are in poor or failing condition. A data call will need to be conducted 
to provide that information with any accuracy.
    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities do you assess are needed by your respective military 
department to meet service mission requirements? How many personnel 
would be served (housed) by these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities? 
What is the total estimated cost to construct these NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities? Of these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities 
required, how many projects, and for what amount, did your service 
request funding in the FY24 budget request?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army is short about 25,000 permanent party 
barracks spaces. An additional $4.3B is required (modeled number) to 
build out the deficit to meet 95% of the barracks space requirement. 
The Army MILCON requested in FY24 $287.5M for 5 barracks projects to 
address deficit. These projects provide an additional 746 modern 
permanent party barracks rooms.
    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many unaccompanied housing 
facilities in your respective military department fail to meet service 
standards for health, safety, privacy, configuration and/or general 
suitability? How many personnel currently reside in these substandard 
facilities? What is the estimated cost to remediate these substandard 
facilities to bring them up to service standards? Of this total 
estimated cost, how much did your service request in the FY24 budget 
request to bring these facilities up to service standards?
    Mr. Thompson. NAVY: The number of personnel housed below DOD and 
Navy assignment standards for configuration/suitability fluctuates due 
to ship movement, unit deployments, and permanent change of station. 
There are roughly 5,000 Service Members living in approximately 500 UH 
facilities that do not meet DOD and Navy assignment standards. The 
estimated cost to improve and expand the current UH inventory to meet 
all existing standards exceed $5B if the Navy solves the issue using 
standard new construction or renovation. The FY24 Facilities 
Sustainment Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) budget for UH is about 
$165M, with no MILCON funding.
    USMC: The Marine Corps currently operates 658 barracks buildings 
worldwide, with an average of 87,600 occupied bed spaces. Overall, 112 
(17%) are assessed as being in poor/failing condition, but these are 
not all due to life, health, and safety (LHS) issues. As of 17 October 
2023, Marine Corps conducted 2,089-bedroom inspections, of which 88 
bedrooms (4%) failed due to LHS issues.
    To bring facilities up to service standards across the enterprise, 
the Marine Corps' Barracks Recapitalization plan includes investing 
$200M/year in restoration. In FY24, $221M is planned for restoration 
and modernization projects.
    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities do you assess are needed by your respective military 
department to meet service mission requirements? How many personnel 
would be served (housed) by these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities? 
What is the total estimated cost to construct these NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities? Of these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities 
required, how many projects, and for what amount, did your service 
request funding in the FY24 budget request?
    Mr. Thompson. The Navy estimates the need for 14 new facilities, 
with an estimated $5B MILCON requirement, to house approximately 13,500 
enlisted Service Members Due to higher mission priorities, the FY24 
President's Budget request did not include additional MILCON funding 
for Unaccompanied Housing (UH).
    The Marine Corps included one project in the FY24 President's 
Budget request for replacement barracks at Marine Barracks Washington 
($132M), which will house 258 personnel. Since FY18, the Marine Corps 
has committed $1.452B to barracks MILCON worldwide. The Marine Corps is 
assessing its overall inventory to identify the right number of 
barracks needed, which will inform requirements for new construction, 
renovation, return-of-excess, and demolition plans.
    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many unaccompanied housing 
facilities in your respective military department fail to meet service 
standards for health, safety, privacy, configuration and/or general 
suitability? How many personnel currently reside in these substandard 
facilities? What is the estimated cost to remediate these substandard 
facilities to bring them up to service standards? Of this total 
estimated cost, how much did your service request in the FY24 budget 
request to bring these facilities up to service standards?
    Mr. Moriarty. The DAF does not allow health, and safety waivers for 
airmen or guardians to reside in dorms. The DAF has one privacy waiver 
allowing two persons per room due to a renovation project scheduled 
through FY27 at McConnell AFB. Based on the current DOD Performance 
goal of 90% of permanent party bed spaces being in adequate condition 
(Facility Condition Index score of 80 or greater)--99% of the DAF 
permanent party dormitories assess as adequate. Additionally, 99% of 
technical training dormitories assess as adequate. No Airmen or 
Guardian should be living in dormitories that are substandard.
    The DAF develops and utilizes an Air Force Dormitory Master Plan 
that provides a holistic look at how well a dorm functions and shows us 
where additional investment is required to keep dorms good by 
addressing systems and components that degrade over time. This plan 
evaluates bed space requirements as compared with current assets, 
assesses the condition of the facilities, and identifies project 
requirements for sustainment or new construction. This plan is 
accomplished every 4 years and investment needs are refreshed annually 
and informs the basis of our investment. DAF continues to program 
projects to sustain, replace and build new facilities for unaccompanied 
members to ensure unaccompanied housing is well maintained and free of 
health and safety concerns.
    Facilities Sustainment, Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) 
funding is a lump sum appropriation used to fund various missions and 
operations for the DAF. The DAF is committed to complying with the FY22 
NDAA, Sec. 2814 requirements for the FY22-26 FYDP. This equates to an 
investment of approximately $1.1B on permanent party dorms. The DAF 
plans to invest $230M for 33 projects in FY24.
    Mr. Bacon. As of October 1, 2023, how many NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities do you assess are needed by your respective military 
department to meet service mission requirements? How many personnel 
would be served (housed) by these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities? 
What is the total estimated cost to construct these NEW unaccompanied 
housing facilities? Of these NEW unaccompanied housing facilities 
required, how many projects, and for what amount, did your service 
request funding in the FY24 budget request?
    Mr. Moriarty. Based on the current plan's military construction 
schedule for FY25-FY31, there is an approximate facility deficit of 23 
facilities to support permanent party requirements for approximately 
3,500 members. DAF estimates the cost for 23 facilities to be 
approximately $1.4B.
    In FY24, there is one MILCON dorm project at Royal Air Force 
Lakenheath for permanent party personnel. This project will construct a 
144-bed enlisted dormitory for the influx of airmen due to arrive with 
a potential new mission and bed down of two F-35 squadrons. The working 
estimate is $50 million.
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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. HOULAHAN
    Ms. Houlahan. I understand that DOD policies allow for 
installations to obtain waivers to DOD health and safety standards for 
barracks, as well as privacy/configuration standards. What did you 
learn during the course of your review about how many waivers are in 
place?
    Ms. Field. GAO was not able to determine precisely how many waivers 
are currently in place, in part because DOD guidance allowing the 
services to waive minimum standards for barracks does not stipulate any 
requirements for documenting and tracking waivers. Specifically, DOD 
guidance does not require the services to document the reasons for 
granting waivers or to track how many waivers are in place. In 
addition, it does not specify time limits for waivers approved by 
military department secretaries. We determined that, as a result of 
limited guidance, the services vary in, and have limited documentation 
of, their use of waivers.
    For example, both the Army and the Marine Corps consider their own 
service-level standards, which are below DOD standards, to effectively 
waive their barracks from meeting DOD standards. Therefore, neither 
service issues waivers to exempt individual barracks from DOD 
standards. However, the Marine Corps does issue waivers when individual 
barracks do not meet its own standards, such as when three service 
members have to share a bedroom. The Navy issued a blanket waiver to 
DOD standards, which has remained in place since 2002, as a temporary 
solution to ensure service members assigned to ships could live in 
barracks while in port. Despite this blanket waiver, the Navy also 
issues waivers for individual barracks that do not meet minimum privacy 
standards, but not when barracks fail to meet configuration standards. 
Finally, Air Force officials told us all Air Force barracks at least 
meet DOD standards. We observed permanent party barracks at one 
installation that provided kitchenettes when they were supposed to, but 
these kitchenettes included minimal equipment for preparing and storing 
food. For example, they did not include stovetops for cooking, a common 
complaint from barracks residents. In March 2023, Air Force officials 
informed us that two installations had recently requested temporary 
waivers to privacy standards, indicating that the service may issue 
waivers in at least some instances when individual barracks do not meet 
DOD standards.
    While it has been difficult to determine the specific number of 
waivers in place given limited documentation of waivers by the 
services, we did obtain information from Navy and Marine Corps 
officials indicating that about 5,000 sailors and 17,000 Marines lived 
in barracks that do not meet DOD minimum adequacy standards as of March 
2023. However, as we noted in our September 2023 report, these figures 
are likely underestimated because these services only issue waivers in 
certain circumstances. Across the services, additional service members 
may be living in substandard barracks for which no waivers are 
currently in place.
    By not setting clear requirements related to waivers, the Office of 
the Secretary of Defense (OSD) does not have full visibility into the 
extent to which service members are living in substandard barracks. 
This is why we recommended that the department set clearer waiver 
requirements, including specifying requirements for tracking and 
documenting waivers and time limits for waivers.\1\ Implementing this 
recommendation, such as by establishing requirements to document the 
reason an installation needs a waiver, the number of barracks and 
service members, as well as the estimated cost for bringing barracks up 
to standards, could help both OSD and the services make risk-based 
decisions on where to prioritize resources. In addition, setting clear 
requirements regarding time limits for waivers would prevent the 
military services from establishing waivers in perpetuity, as has 
occurred, and encourage progress.
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    \1\ GAO, Military Barracks: Poor Living Conditions Undermine 
Quality of Life and Readiness, GAO-23-105797 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 
19, 2023).
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    Ms. Houlahan. For years the military departments have chosen to 
take risk by underfunding facilities sustainment accounts and barracks 
have been hit particularly hard by this risk-taking. Given that this 
problem is years in the making, what are views on the best ways to make 
meaningful progress quickly to ensure that our service members are 
living in acceptable conditions in barracks?
    Ms. Field. It will take years of sustained oversight and attention 
to reverse the neglected maintenance and chronic underfunding that have 
led to poor conditions in barracks. In January 2022, we reported that 
DOD had a backlog of at least $137 billion in deferred maintenance 
costs as of fiscal year 2020, and that lower-priority facilities--such 
as barracks--are chronically neglected and experience increased 
deterioration.\2\ We recommended that DOD improve its implementation of 
the Sustainment Management System to better deal with the sustainment 
backlog.\3\ Improving barracks conditions specifically and addressing 
the quality-of-life and morale issues associated with poor conditions 
will require DOD to take actions in multiple areas. We believe that 
fully implementing all 31 recommendations in our September 2023 report 
will position the department to better address these challenges.\4\
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    \2\ GAO, Defense Infrastructure: DOD Should Better Manage Risks 
Posed by Deferred Facility Maintenance, GAO22-104481 (Washington, D.C.: 
Jan. 31, 2022).
    \3\ GAO-22-104481.
    \4\ GAO-23-105797.
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    For example, we recommended that the department should clarify 
guidance related to minimum standards for barracks and how the services 
should conduct condition assessments of barracks facilities. It should 
also update guidance to require that OSD and the military services use 
regular surveys to collect information from service members on the 
effects of barracks conditions on their quality of life and readiness. 
In addition, the department and services should develop processes to 
track and report complete and reliable information on the funding they 
need and have used to improve barracks conditions. The services should 
also reevaluate policies related to barracks programs, such as policies 
that provide exemptions to typical requirements to live in barracks and 
those that define the personnel structures for barracks manager 
positions. Finally, OSD needs to increase oversight and facilitate 
collaboration across the services to improve barracks conditions.
    Fully implementing all of our recommendations will enable the 
department to: 1) better identify substandard barracks and the effects 
they have on service members' quality of life and readiness; 2) make 
more informed and targeted budget and funding decisions to improve 
conditions; 3) improve readiness and morale by improving quality of 
life for those required to live in barracks; and 4) better identify and 
address long-standing challenges in barracks conditions across the 
services. DOD concurred with most of our recommendations, but they only 
partially concurred with 8 of our recommendations. As mentioned, these 
problems are many years in the making and addressing these challenges 
will take long-term commitment and effort of the department and the 
military services. Continued Congressional oversight and focus on the 
department's efforts will help ensure implementation of our 
recommendations and that all service members are living in acceptable 
barracks.
    In the meantime, installation leaders can also work to identify 
critical service member needs and take immediate actions to improve 
day-to-day life in barracks at their installations. For example, at an 
Air Force installation we visited, a barracks manager administered an 
ad-hoc survey for residents in one barracks facility to gather the 
perspective of residents on needed improvements. Air Force officials 
took immediate steps to respond to service members concerns, such as 
adding personal storage lockers for pantry and kitchen items in the 
communal kitchen. At an Army installation, officials told us they 
invested in adding cooktops to barracks kitchenettes because service 
members had identified the need for better cooking facilities as a 
significant concern. Service members reported improvements in quality 
of life as a result of these efforts. Such actions alone will not 
rectify the poor conditions in barracks resulting from years of 
underfunding and neglected maintenance; however, they could help make 
targeted improvements to service members' morale and experiences in 
barracks while the department works to fully address all our 
recommendations.
    Ms. Houlahan. What observations can you share with us about the 
level of oversight that OSD is providing to the military services when 
it comes to barracks?
    Ms. Field. In September 2023, we reported that OSD does not provide 
sufficient oversight of housing programs for barracks.\5\ DOD guidance 
has not established an oversight structure that gives officials within 
OSD responsibility for creating and standardizing policies and 
processes regarding government-owned barracks. While OSD does conduct 
annual programmatic reviews of barracks, we found that these reviews 
are generally limited compared to OSD's quarterly programmatic reviews 
of privatized family housing. We identified a number of key areas in 
which OSD's oversight of barracks is limited.
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    \5\ GAO-23-105797.
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    First, OSD officials told us they were unaware of challenges 
related to substandard barracks and that OSD does not monitor the 
number of barracks in substandard conditions across services because 
OSD does not have a role in military service waivers of DOD minimum 
standards for barracks. Second, OSD does not track complete budget 
information on the full scope of barracks and barracks-related funding. 
For example, budget materials used to support OSD's annual reviews of 
barracks do not identify budget information related to Basic Allowance 
for Housing for service members in the United States who would be 
living in barracks if not for condition or space issues--an amount 
totaling $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2022, according to our analysis. 
Third, OSD does not have complete information on the effects of 
barracks conditions on service members. For example, while the services 
are supposed to provide information to OSD on how they measure tenant 
satisfaction for barracks residents, OSD has not directed them to 
provide robust information on the results of those assessments--
information without which OSD's ability to identify long-standing 
challenges in barracks conditions across the services is limited. In 
addition, OSD has not facilitated collaboration across military 
services to jointly improve barracks conditions.
    OSD officials acknowledged that they have not been as focused on 
strengthening oversight of barracks as they have privatized family 
housing, in part because of limited staffing resources and 
congressional focus on privatized family housing in recent years. 
Service officials also told us that increased oversight from OSD could 
result in improvements to barracks conditions. As noted above, one of 
the recommendations from our September 2023 report related to 
strengthening oversight; we believe that implementing that 
recommendation will help the department address decades-long challenges 
with barracks conditions.
    Ms. Houlahan. DOD officials insist that, despite the problems we've 
seen over the last few years, privatizing the military family housing 
program was the right thing to do because it allowed the government to 
improve the condition of the housing in less time and for less money 
than if DOD used the traditional military construction process. Has GAO 
ever validated that assertion?
    Ms. Field. GAO's work in the early years of the Military Housing 
Privatization Initiative (MHPI) sought to assess the validity of the 
assumption that leveraging private sector financing would allow DOD to 
eliminate inadequate housing more economically and faster than could be 
achieved through traditional military construction financing. A number 
of complicating factors made doing so difficult. In 1996, for example, 
GAO reported that because DOD was using new construction standards to 
assess the condition of military-owned housing units, many housing 
units that DOD classified as inadequate were not dilapidated, but only 
lacked modern amenities, such as a separate utility room or a 
carport.\6\ In other words, there was no reliable baseline with which 
to compare the condition of the new, privatized housing to the old, 
government-owned housing. Further, in 2000, we reported that, because 
no projects under the program had been completed, there was little 
basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the program in eliminating 
inadequate housing more economically and faster than could be achieved 
through traditional military construction financing.\7\
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    \6\ GAO, Military Housing: Privatization Off to a Slow Start and 
Continued Management Attention Needed, GAO/NSIAD-98-178 (Washington, 
D.C., July 17, 1998).
    \7\ GAO, Military Housing: Continued Concerns in Implementing the 
Privatization Initiative, GAO/NSIAD-00-71 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 30, 
2000).
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    However, we were able to evaluate DOD's estimated cost savings. 
When GAO analyzed the complete life-cycle cost estimates that DOD had 
prepared for individual projects, we found that, overall, the cost 
savings were likely to be more modest than predicted. For example, in a 
1998 analysis of two privatized housing projects, GAO's review showed 
that although privatization was less costly for each project, the 
overall estimated cost savings to the government were considerably less 
than the military services' estimates--about $54 million less, or about 
7 percent, at one of the two installations, and $15 million less, or 
about 10 percent, at the other. GAO also found in a subsequent review 
of 12 projects that privatization, on average, should cost the 
government about 11 percent less than military construction financing. 
For 10 of the projects, we calculated that the estimated savings ranged 
from 38 percent to 5 percent. For the remaining two projects, we 
estimated that privatization would cost more than military 
construction--about 9 percent and about 15 percent more, respectively.
    In recent years, questions about whether privatization was the 
right policy choice have transitioned to questions about how 
privatization is working, including questions regarding the long-term 
cost effectiveness and condition of privatized housing. As such, GAO's 
work has focused on assessing the financial health of privatized 
housing projects and DOD's oversight of the condition of the housing. 
For example, in March 2018, we reported that DOD could improve its 
assessments of the long-term financial sustainability of privatized 
housing projects.\8\ In April 2023, we reported that OSD and the 
military departments could improve their oversight of the condition--
and therefore quality--of privatized housing, such as by ensuring 
inspectors have the training necessary to assess the condition of these 
homes adequately and consistently.\9\
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    \8\ GAO, Military Housing Privatization: DOD Should Take Steps to 
Improve Monitoring, Reporting, and Risk Assessment, GAO-18-218 
(Washington, D.C.: Mar. 13, 2018).
    \9\ GAO, Military Housing: DOD Can Further Strengthen Oversight of 
Its Privatized Housing Program, GAO-23-105377 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 
19, 2023).
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    Ms. Houlahan. The 2020 NDAA created the Military Housing 
Privatization Tenant Bill of Rights and authorized every military 
installation a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate position to assist 
residents in the identification and resolution of housing challenges. 
However, personal statements indicate that some installations are still 
without a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate, leaving them beholden 
to the privatized housing office without a voice. Can you provide 
metrics on your current resident advocate manning and provide insight 
on your plan to ensure each of these positions is filled as quickly as 
possible?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army's privatized housing portfolio consists of 36 
housing projects comprised of 51 installations. Each installation has 
an Army Housing Manager, which is the designated Housing Resident 
Advocate, as outlined in Pub Law 116-92 Sect 2894 (b)(4).
    Fort Belvoir is the only Army privatized housing installation that 
has created a position that serves as an Ombudsman in addition to the 
Army Housing Manager. The Ombudsman serves as a Housing Management 
Specialist under the supervision of the Deputy Garrison Commander and 
advocates for service members and families mediating landlord/tenant 
disputes when requested by the resident.
    The Army works at all echelons collaboratively to ensure that the 
installations have proper manning and that the key roles are filled.
    Ms. Houlahan. GAO's latest report on MHPI states DOD has all of the 
authorities it needs to hold private housing companies accountable if 
they engage in misconduct, to include major fraud. And yet, DOD has 
never terminated a privatized housing project, even when one of the 
primary partners admitted to major fraud. Why? What would it take for 
you to decide that it was no longer in the government's best interest 
to continue a privatized housing project?
    Ms. Coulson. Although the project legal documents provide 
mechanisms for terminating a privatized housing project, termination of 
a project is an extreme step that would be immensely disruptive and 
could, at least in the short term, adversely impact the Army's ability 
to ensure military members and their families are provided safe and 
habitable homes.
    Without terminating a privatized housing project, the Army has the 
authority to compel termination of any privatized military company 
property management service provider that fails to properly maintain 
safe and habitable housing and fails to cure its deficient performance 
within a reasonable period-of-time. While there are housing issues that 
have not yet been resolved, the Army currently believes that all 
housing service providers are making substantial progress in resolving 
the issues that remain at their respective projects. As a result, there 
are currently no plans by the Army to compel termination of any 
privatized military housing property manager contract. Previously, 
however, the Army did take action resulting in the termination of a 
property management company servicing the Fort Belvoir, Benning, Irwin 
and Presidio of Monterey Projects; in that case, upper-level management 
of the company was directly implicated in fraudulent behavior.
    In addition to compelling the termination of a property manager, 
the Army may terminate privatized housing projects when the project 
company has failed to comply with the terms of its lease with the Army. 
Grounds for termination include failure to provide safe and habitable 
housing, and failure to cure any non- compliance with the lease within 
a reasonable period-of-time. Upon termination of a project, the Army 
will own the project's housing and be immediately responsible for 
operating and maintaining it. As the Army is neither staffed nor funded 
to resume the operation of privatized housing, termination of a project 
could be difficult to smoothly execute in the short term.
    Ms. Houlahan. In the GAO report released earlier this month, 
unacceptable health and safety conditions like mold, broken windows, 
sewage overflows, and others were mentioned across the board. How 
prevalent are these unacceptable conditions across your respective 
service and what are your plans to address the dire state of 
unaccompanied housing for our service members now and in the immediate 
future?
    Ms. Coulson. These conditions are not prevalent in the Army. We 
remediate and/or mitigate unacceptable health and safety conditions, as 
described in the question, when they are identified. In FY23, the Army 
executed a deliberate and comprehensive inspection of all barracks to 
identify environmental, health, and safety conditions that would 
contribute to reduced quality of life for residents. All identified 
deficiencies were mitigated, remediated, or otherwise remedied. The 
Army also is using the Army Maintenance Application which enables 
service members to place and track service orders electronically. This 
gives better visibility to leaders and Directorates of Public Works of 
maintenance issues and their resolution.
    The Army is investing more than $1B/year across its Future Years 
Defense Program for the construction, renovation, modernization, and 
sustainment of barracks. In Fiscal Year 25, the Army will attempt to 
improve its posture for sustainment funding invested in all barracks 
types. Fully sustaining barracks is key to reducing degradation and 
ultimately maintenance backlog.
    Ms. Houlahan. Can you tell me how many barracks facilities each of 
your services operate and maintain that have in place a waiver to DOD 
health and safety standards or privacy and configuration standards? How 
long have these waivers been in place? What are you going to do to 
bring those substandard barracks up to where they should be?
    Ms. Coulson. No Army unaccompanied housing is under an active 
waiver to the DOD standards. A previous waiver was put in place in 
2012, but that has long since expired.
    The Army continues to dedicate significant resources of over $1B/
year to unaccompanied housing investments, in additional to looking 
closely at its policy and processes to improve management practices.
    Ms. Houlahan. What can you share with us about the level of 
attention and direction you receive at the OSD level? Do you think OSD 
pays the same level of attention to barracks that it does to MHPI? Is 
there any type of support that you would find useful from OSD?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army continues to have open dialogue with OSD on 
the unaccompanied housing program. OSD is very engaged in guiding and 
supporting the Army's program as it matures and evolves. The Army is 
appreciative of the interactive relationship and looks forward to 
shaping and implementing future OSD-established minimum standards on 
privacy, configuration and health and safety.
    Ms. Houlahan. The 2020 NDAA created the Military Housing 
Privatization Tenant Bill of Rights and authorized every military 
installation a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate position to assist 
residents in the identification and resolution of housing challenges. 
However, personal statements indicate that some installations are still 
without a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate, leaving them beholden 
to the privatized housing office without a voice. Can you provide 
metrics on your current resident advocate manning and provide insight 
on your plan to ensure each of these positions is filled as quickly as 
possible?
    Mr. Thompson. All Navy installations provide housing services to 
service members via our Navy Housing Service Centers (HSC). The HSCs 
provide advocacy services to accompanied and unaccompanied military 
members for a wide variety of housing issues. Resident advocacy has 
always been a core service at the HSCs. All residents have access to 
the HSC, and the HSC engages in continuous tenant outreach. In 2021, 
the Navy hired an additional 183 positions to conduct oversight and 
project management of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative 
(MHPI). These positions are responsible for various tasks including 
inspection of homes, follow up communication with residents after move-
in and after maintenance work, liaison between the resident and the 
MHPI Project manager, and advocacy services.
    The Marine Corps hired 113 personnel to supplement its Military 
Housing Office (MHO) staff. The Marine Corps also understands the 
importance of tenant advocacy and ensures military tenants are educated 
on their rights (e.g., Plain Language Briefing), understands the 
dispute resolution process (e.g., dispute resolution flyer), and is 
provided points of contact to for assistance. Each installation's MHO 
provides a Tenant Advocate/Mediator who is focused on tenant-landlord 
dispute mediation; ensuring PPV adherence to the Fair Housing Act; 
ensuring tenant's complaints are documented and processed; assessing 
satisfaction surveys and implementing corrective action; and mediating 
disputes between tenants.
    Ms. Houlahan. GAO's latest report on MHPI states DOD has all of the 
authorities it needs to hold private housing companies accountable if 
they engage in misconduct, to include major fraud. And yet, DOD has 
never terminated a privatized housing project, even when one of the 
primary partners admitted to major fraud. Why? What would it take for 
you to decide that it was no longer in the government's best interest 
to continue a privatized housing project?
    Mr. Thompson. The DON's ground leases and associated legal 
agreements that comprise the project deal structures include 
termination of the Managing Member (MM) for cause clauses that can be 
exercised in extreme cases.
    In the major fraud case, the DON decided to focus on actions by the 
DON and Balfour Beatty Communities (BBC) to prevent future instances of 
fraud rather than exercising the right to terminate BBC. Following 
BBC's misconduct, they replaced all of the personnel responsible for 
the fraud. Additionally, BBC's settlement established a robust 
corporate compliance program under which BBC agreed to modify its 
existing compliance program, including internal controls, compliance 
policies, and procedures, in order to provide for effective detection 
and deterrence of violations of U.S. anti-fraud law. The DON conducted 
internal investigations with the Acquisition Integrity Office (AIO) and 
determined that appropriate DON work order oversight measures are in 
place to protect the DON's interests going forward.
    The DON has increased MHPI company oversight and accountability by 
ensuring DON personnel have access to electronic maintenance records, 
hiring new quality assurance personnel to monitor maintenance 
performance and data quality, and revising project performance 
incentive fee metrics and withholding of fees until the data is 
validated by the DON.
    The DON has opted for the early termination and dissolution of MHPI 
projects in the past as a result of declining military housing 
requirements in the respective locations of the projects and low 
military occupancy.
    Ms. Houlahan. In the GAO report released earlier this month, 
unacceptable health and safety conditions like mold, broken windows, 
sewage overflows, and others were mentioned across the board. How 
prevalent are these unacceptable conditions across your respective 
service and what are your plans to address the dire state of 
unaccompanied housing for our service members now and in the immediate 
future?
    Mr. Thompson. The Navy acknowledges that unacceptable health and 
safety conditions exist in the total Unaccompanied Housing (UH) 
inventory. However, no Sailor is living in Navy UH that has life, 
safety, or health-related issues. The Navy takes buildings, or 
individual units, off line when a life, safety or health-related issue 
is identified until the health and safety condition is corrected. In 
addition, the Navy implemented a standardized inspection program across 
the enterprise to ensure UH assignment meets DOD and Navy health, 
safety, and configuration standards. As of the end of FY22, 60% of Navy 
Permanent Party UH bedrooms have a Condition Index (CI) of good or 
fair. The Navy is developing a 10-year investment plan to recapitalize 
and modernize our UH inventory.
    The Marine Corps also acknowledges that unacceptable health and 
safety conditions exist in their UH inventory. The Marine Corps 
currently operates 658 barracks buildings world-wide, with an average 
of 87,600 occupied bed spaces. Overall, 112 facilities (17%) are 
assessed as being in poor/failing condition, but these conditions are 
not all attributable to life, health, and safety (LHS) issues.
    In the near-term, the Marine Corps is taking action to improve the 
quality of life for Marines living in unaccompanied housing. In June 
2023, the Marine Corps published its Unaccompanied Housing Guarantees 
and Resident Responsibilities, which ensures Marines receive safe, 
secure housing that meets health, environmental and safety standards; 
has functional fixtures, furnishings, appliances, and utilities; have 
access to common areas and amenities; and fast maintenance and repair 
when something breaks. Additionally, following complaints about the 
lack of air conditioning at Camp Pendleton barracks, the Marine Corps 
is developing a systematic plan for installing new air conditioning 
systems. Separately, there are 10 repair projects scheduled in FY23 and 
FY24 that will improve barracks in poor condition. Further, the Marine 
Corps has launched a pilot program to test a new phone application that 
will allow Marines to quickly and easily submit service requests for 
barracks issues and receive feedback automatically on their repair 
request. Finally, in August 2023, the Marine Corps started its Sergeant 
Without Dependents Basic Allowance for Housing Initiative, which 
provides highly deserving sergeants with the allowance at a rate for 
troops without dependents to live in homes outside of base.
    For the long-term, the Marine Corps will institute a new approach 
to barracks management that directly addresses Recommendation 28 of the 
GAO-23- 105797 report. This new model will replace Marines with 
civilian personnel to manage barracks. This new structure will 
professionalize the management workforce and address systemic backlog 
issues such as tracking inventory and maintenance. Additionally, the 
Marine Corps will target its resources to rightsize its barracks 
inventory, which requires the use of military construction, 
restoration, and demolition funding levers.
    Ms. Houlahan. Can you tell me how many barracks facilities each of 
your services operate and maintain that have in place a waiver to DOD 
health and safety standards or privacy and configuration standards? How 
long have these waivers been in place? What are you going to do to 
bring those substandard barracks up to where they should be?
    Mr. Thompson. The Navy has implemented a standardized inspection 
program to ensure UH assignment meets DOD and Navy health, safety and 
configuration standards. Since 2011, the Navy waived the DOD privacy 
and configuration standards to house E1-E3 personnel. Currently, 
approximately 200 UH facilities have assignment standards waivers. In 
order to support the Navy's Homeport Ashore Program (all shipboard 
Sailors live ashore when in homeport), an additional 300 UH facilities 
use an interim assignment policy (no more than 2 Sailors/room and 4 
Sailors/bath) and, due to the interim nature, do not require a waiver. 
The Navy is developing a UH optimization plan that will address 
capacity shortfalls.
    The Marine Corps has a waiver from the Assistant Secretary of the 
Navy (Energy, Installation and Environment) regarding Marine Corps 
Order 1100.22 and the maintenance of current Minimum Adequate 
Assignment Standards, which relate to required barracks space 
considerations by paygrade. As of October 2023, there are 90 buildings, 
the vast majority of which were constructed prior to the institution of 
new minimum space considerations by paygrade. The waiver was first 
approved 22 Dec 2015 and is a permanent exception.
    The Marine Corps' Barracks 2030 plan will improve barracks 
management and raise our facilities to current industry standards by 
focusing on:
    1.  Barracks Management. We will professionalize and streamline 
barracks management, improve responsiveness to resident's requests, and 
provide basic allowance for housing to well-deserving Sergeants.
    2.  Barracks Occupancy. We will repair rooms in-stride, reconfigure 
and right-size barracks footprint, re-capitalize barracks, and explore 
PublicPrivate Venture relationships to expand housing options.
    3.  Improve Furniture Recapitalization. We will decrease the 
average furniture replacement time to ensure adequate room amenities.
    4.  Indoor Air Quality. We will conduct a pilot program with air 
ionization systems to test its efficacy in barracks, and if successful, 
include the specifications in barracks design standardization.
    Ms. Houlahan. What can you share with us about the level of 
attention and direction you receive at the OSD level? Do you think OSD 
pays the same level of attention to barracks that it does to MHPI? Is 
there any type of support that you would find useful from OSD?
    Mr. Thompson. The DON appreciates OSD's attention and any direction 
from OSD for all housing types. The DON has worked closely in the past 
with OSD staff and leadership developing new initiatives and oversight 
practices in regards to MHPI housing and has seen increased focus on UH 
recently. The DON is prepared to continue utilizing this strong 
relationship as OSD continues to increases its staff, with the goal of 
quality of life for all service members and their families
    Ms. Houlahan. The 2020 NDAA created the Military Housing 
Privatization Tenant Bill of Rights and authorized every military 
installation a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate position to assist 
residents in the identification and resolution of housing challenges. 
However, personal statements indicate that some installations are still 
without a Privatized Housing Resident Advocate, leaving them beholden 
to the privatized housing office without a voice. Can you provide 
metrics on your current resident advocate manning and provide insight 
on your plan to ensure each of these positions is filled as quickly as 
possible?
    Mr. Moriarty. The Department of the Air Force (DAF) established 60 
Privatized Housing Resident Advocate (RA) positions. Currently there 
are no vacant positions. Installations fill vacancies in accordance 
with established processes and authorities. The roles and 
responsibilities of the Privatized Housing Resident Advocate will 
continue to be performed during any position vacancy.
    Ms. Houlahan. GAO's latest report on MHPI states DOD has all of the 
authorities it needs to hold private housing companies accountable if 
they engage in misconduct, to include major fraud. And yet, DOD has 
never terminated a privatized housing project, even when one of the 
primary partners admitted to major fraud. Why? What would it take for 
you to decide that it was no longer in the government's best interest 
to continue a privatized housing project?
    Mr. Moriarty. Up to this point in time, all the project owners have 
worked with DAF to resolve our major concerns. The respective project 
owners are working with DAF and have shown improvement. DAF will 
continue to address challenges and take corrective actions when we 
encounter project owner performance problems.
    A decision to find the project in default is likely to result in 
unintended consequences unless DAF purchases the project and pays off 
any loans associated with the project. DAF would try to exhaust other 
remediate efforts, to include encouraging a sale of the project to a 
different owner prior to declaring default. Every DAF MHPI project has 
a commercial loan/bond issuance that is senior lienholder in our 
project, which could make decisions without DAF input. Generally, the 
senior lender assumes control of the project in the event of an uncured 
default, which would severely limit DAF options. The senior lender 
could name a project manager and would control project cash flow. With 
control of project cash flow, the senior lender might greatly constrain 
the availability of funds to remedy any issues with the homes and not 
have the same willingness to work with the DAF to develop long-term 
solutions.
    The negative consequences, of declaring a default, particularly 
DAF's loss of control during foreclosure, would be carefully weighed 
against assumed advantages of finding an MHPI project owner in default. 
In the most extreme circumstance where a project owner refused to work 
with DAF to resolve serious health and safety issues, DAF would 
consider exercising more serious remedies that are available under the 
legal agreements, even if faced with the possibility of a senior lender 
taking control of the MHPI project. In those circumstances, the project 
owner could attempt to sell the MHPI project and would be required to 
work with DAF to find a qualified buyer to take over the MHPI project.
    Ms. Houlahan. In the GAO report released earlier this month, 
unacceptable health and safety conditions like mold, broken windows, 
sewage overflows, and others were mentioned across the board. How 
prevalent are these unacceptable conditions across your respective 
service and what are your plans to address the dire state of 
unaccompanied housing for our service members now and in the immediate 
future?
    Mr. Moriarty. The Department remains committed to ensuring we 
provide safe and adequate dorms for our Airmen and Guardians and 
continues to invest in the repair and/or replacement of our dorms and 
their internal systems in accordance with asset management principles 
and our dormitory master plans. We have investment plans in place to 
ensure our dorms remain adequate for our members.
    The DAF consider dormitories commander's business. Our full-time 
Airmen Dorm Leaders (ADLs) offer daily oversight in our dormitories. 
Commanders at all levels are expected to proactively address concerns 
in dormitories so they can be remedied. While construction projects are 
necessary, hands-on leaders' involvement is critical to our ability to 
ensure members are living in safe and healthy environments and when 
problems arise, they are promptly and properly dealt with. 
Specifically, based on the current DOD Performance goal of 90% of 
permanent party bed spaces being in adequate condition (Facility 
Condition Index score of 80 or greater)--99% of the DAF permanent party 
dormitories assess as adequate. Additionally, 99% of technical training 
dormitories assess as adequate. These efforts ensure that issues raised 
in the GAO report are not prevalent across the DAF portfolio.
    For permanent party dorms, the FY22 NDAA, Sec. 2814, required the 
Services to invest no less than 5% of the remaining service potential 
over the FY22-26 FYDP. For the DAF this equates to approximately $1.1B 
on permanent party dorms for FY22-26. We are focused on meeting the 
NDAA requirement. In FY23 DAF funded 36 projects at $276M and plans to 
invest $230M for 33 projects in FY24. Similar investments are in the 
planning stages to occur through FY26. The DAF will optimize 
investments and execute dorm projects aligned with the ``Air Force 
Dormitory Master Plan'' and established service priorities.
    Ms. Houlahan. Can you tell me how many barracks facilities each of 
your services operate and maintain that have in place a waiver to DOD 
health and safety standards or privacy and configuration standards? How 
long have these waivers been in place? What are you going to do to 
bring those substandard barracks up to where they should be?
    Mr. Moriarty. The Department of the Air Force (DAF) does not 
provide waivers to health and safety standards. Installation Commanders 
actively utilize resources (First Sergeants, ADLs, residents, O&M 
funding) to source feedback and address health and safety standards.
    Regarding waivers to privacy standards, the DAF assignment standard 
is one private room for each permanent party member, E-1 through E-3 
and E-4 with less than 3 years of service. Based on the configuration 
of the unaccompanied housing (UH) facility, a member is provided a 
private bath or bath shared by not more than one other resident. These 
assignment adequacy standards may be temporarily waived when mission 
dictates; for example, accomplishing major maintenance and repair 
project, military necessity, shortfall of existing bed spaces, etc. DAF 
has one installation (McConnell AFB) with an approved privacy waiver 
(Aug 23) to house two persons per room with shared baths due to an on-
going renovation project. The estimated renovation completion date is 
FY27.
    The configuration of DAF dormitories and construction standards 
have evolved over 37+ years. The current UH inventory has several 
configurations used to support UH requirement; all configurations are 
considered adequate. DAF established policy related to minimum 
assignment standards based on configurations of existing inventory and 
focused on square footage, maximum number of service members per room 
and maximum number of members sharing bathrooms. Since the standards 
have evolved over 37+ years, not all dorm configurations have the 
availability of kitchens and kitchenettes, therefore the DAF does not 
consider this a reason to prohibit assignment of dormitory bed spaces. 
The DAF designs consider kitchen or kitchenettes to provide 
supplemental cooking/eating options for residents, but they are not 
intended to replace dining facilities. However, DAF's newest 
construction standard for replacement or new dormitory requirements 
provides for kitchenettes as defined by DAF standards.
    Ms. Houlahan. What can you share with us about the level of 
attention and direction you receive at the OSD level? Do you think OSD 
pays the same level of attention to barracks that it does to MHPI? Is 
there any type of support that you would find useful from OSD?
    Mr. Moriarty. OSD engages with Military Departments regarding all 
aspects of DOD housing programs to ensure service members are provided 
access to suitable housing on or off the installation. Specific to 
Unaccompanied Housing (UH) the Department of Defense (DOD) policy 
provides the responsibilities to the head of DOD Components to 1) 
Establish criteria to determine which Service members are required to 
live in military housing and which are authorized to receive a housing 
allowance and may choose where to live; and, 2) Establish adequacy and 
construction standards for DOD housing pursuant to law and based on 
guidance from OSD. While adequacy and construction standards for DOD 
family housing generally should be similar to private-sector housing, 
the Heads of the DOD Components have more flexibility to establish 
adequacy and construction standards for DOD unaccompanied housing (UH) 
(permanent party and trainees or students).
    OSD provides the Services and Installation Commanders flexibility 
to administer and execute all aspects of housing within established 
policy. DAF has established housing policy and program with defined 
requirements, assignment standards and construction standards. DAF does 
not believe additional OSD guidance is required.
                                 ______
                                 
                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. JACOBS
    Ms. Jacobs. Why is it that each of the services have come to 
different conclusions about the feasibility of privatized barracks? How 
have each of the services conducted these studies, and how have they 
used different methodologies that have led to inconsistent analysis?
    Ms. Field. From 1997 to 2011, the military services conducted 
several analyses about the feasibility of privatized barracks. In our 
September 2023 report, we noted that these prior efforts to evaluate 
the feasibility of privatizing barracks did not constitute a 
comprehensive, department-wide analysis sufficient for decision 
making.\10\ As a result, each service used different methods, such as 
business-case and life-cycle cost analyses, and different assumptions 
about how repairs and upkeep for housing would be funded, resulting in 
different conclusions about the potential for cost savings from using 
either privatization or the traditional government-funding military 
construction approach. In summary, inconsistent methods resulted in 
varying conclusions and actions, specifically:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \10\ GAO-23-105797.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Army and Navy. From 2004 to 2011, the Army and the Navy conducted 
multiple analyses to assess the feasibility of privatizing barracks. 
For example, the Army conducted a study involving different assumptions 
about the number and pay grades of unaccompanied personnel housed on 
and off installations, as well as the amount of money spent by the Army 
to construct and sustain facilities. The Army also conducted a series 
of business-case analyses for privatized projects at six installations. 
The Navy conducted various analyses that considered multiple scenarios 
based on data collected from site visits at two Navy installations. The 
Army concluded that privatization is feasible but more costly in most 
cases, while the Navy concluded privatization would be feasible in 
certain locations. Both services moved forward with privatized barracks 
projects at that time. In September 2023, we reported that both 
services are considering additional privatized barracks projects.
    Air Force and Marine Corps. From 1997 to 2002, the Air Force 
conducted a series of analyses, beginning with a feasibility study, 
including site visits at two installations selected in part because 
both had housing shortages. The study concluded that privatization 
would be less expensive than military construction at one installation, 
but not the other. Another analysis found that issues related to unit 
integrity, the scale of necessary government commitment of funds, and 
difficulty conducting inspections in buildings not solely government-
owned would make privatization projects unfeasible. In 2008, the Marine 
Corps conducted a feasibility study, which included a life-cycle cost 
analysis, focused on one installation which lacked sufficient high 
quality unaccompanied housing. The analysis found that privatizing 
barracks would be more expensive than building new barracks through 
military construction. Therefore, both services concluded that 
privatization projects would generally not be feasible service wide. In 
September 2023, we reported that the Air Force is considering a 
privatized barracks project at one installation where unique market 
conditions may make privatized housing a successful business model. The 
Marine Corps is conducting a study to assess the feasibility of 
privatized barracks at two installations but have no plans to move 
forward with privatization.
    OSD and service officials told us the idea of privatizing barracks 
is appealing, but questions remain about the feasibility of doing so--
questions related to cost effectiveness, mandatory assignment, 
complications due to deployments, and effects on unit cohesion. In an 
effort to improve living conditions, a congressional committee has 
encouraged DOD to look for innovative ways to improve barracks 
condition, including privatization. As you are aware, the Secretary of 
Defense was to provide a report to the House Armed Services Committee 
on the feasibility of privatizing barracks across all military services 
by July 2023.\11\ Through a comprehensive, department-wide report on 
barracks privatization, the department could provide information that 
may help weigh the pros and cons of privatization. However, as we 
reported in September 2023, DOD did not provide this report to Congress 
by July 2023, and officials were unable to provide an updated timeframe 
for when they would do so.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ H.R. Rep. No. 117-397, at 377 (2022).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ms. Jacobs. Regarding privatizing unaccompanied housing, an earlier 
GAO from 2014 report states, ``The Navy's evaluation of the developer's 
proposed budget for 2013 noted that although the overall occupancy rate 
for the San Diego project at the end of 2012 was about 96 percent, the 
revenues being received were insufficient to sustain the project over 
the long term.''
    However, in a response to an RFI from our office to the DON on 
September 22, 2023, DON explained that PPV barrack projects were more 
cost effective for the following reason: ``a. No competition for 
funding. MILCON and Restoration & Modernization Projects currently 
compete with other Navy projects for funding that may have higher 
priority. b. Life cycle analysis has consistently shown privatization 
to be less costly than military construction. c. Studies have revealed 
PPV as the most cost effective investment strategy for Homeport Ashore 
and Jr Permanent Party Sailors. d. Sustainment and maintenance funds--
Degradation of government owned facilities outpace funding for 
sustainment and maintenance resulting in decreased life expectancy and 
condition of gov-operated unaccompanied housing. PPV relieves the DON 
of maintenance and sustainment responsibilities of the privatized 
assets.''
    Does GAO still stand by its 2014 assessment? And how would GAO 
respond to the RFI cited above?
    Ms. Field. Our 2014 report conveyed information provided to us by 
the Navy. Specifically, we reported that, according to Navy officials, 
the Navy's San Diego project was intended to house mid-level 
unaccompanied personnel (with ranks E-4 to E-6),\12\ but this target 
population was not realized because of a general desire by service 
members in this demographic not to return to on-base housing. As such, 
the Navy decided to temporarily expand the target demographic for the 
project to include more junior unaccompanied personnel and Homeport 
Ashore sailors.\13\ This shift increased occupancy rates, but strained 
revenues for the private developer, specifically because these more 
junior sailors' partial basic allowance for housing (BAH) rates were 
below the market rent for the new buildings. The private developer's 
financial projections were based on that market rent. Therefore, in 
September 2013, OSD approved a Navy request to increase the partial 
rate of BAH for junior unaccompanied personnel residing in the 
buildings.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \12\ GAO, Military Housing: Information on the Privatization of 
Unaccompanied Personnel Housing, GAO-14-313 (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 18, 
2014).
    \13\ Homeport Ashore is a Navy program created to improve the 
quality of life among ship-based junior sailors by moving them off 
ships and into unaccompanied housing on shore while their ships were 
docked in their homeport.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    We have not had the opportunity to review the Navy's full response 
to the RFI. However, the Navy's statements referenced in the question 
are consistent with statements made by department and military service 
officials during the course of our recent work, specifically that 
barracks projects do not compete well against other needed maintenance 
or construction projects. As such, several officials stated that 
``fenced funding'' would be beneficial to ensuring barracks funding 
needs were met or that privatized barracks were appealing. However, our 
broader work on MHPI has found that DOD needed to improve its 
assessments of the long-term financial sustainability of privatized 
housing projects--including assessing any risks to privatized project 
revenues resulting from reductions in BAH.\14\ Further, as we recently 
reported, DOD and the military services should examine the full scope 
of funding requirements to house the barracks resident service member 
population.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \14\ GAO-18-218.
    \15\ GAO-23-105797.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Navy stated in the RFI that privatized barracks would relieve 
the Department of the Navy of maintenance and sustainment 
responsibilities of the privatized assets. However, as noted in our 
report, forgoing needed maintenance and construction may limit the use 
of maintenance and construction funding, but may increase the amount of 
military personnel funding--for BAH--needed to house service members 
typically required to live in government-owned barracks. As such, we 
reiterate our recommendation that DOD carefully track and report all 
barracks-related funding. Without doing so, it will continue to be 
challenging for DOD to weigh different options for funding barracks and 
barracks-related needs, such as weighing the use of O&M, MILCON, or 
Military Personnel--and specifically BAH--to meet housing needs. 
Moreover, Congress will have limited visibility into the full scope of 
funding requirements to house this service member population.
    Ms. Jacobs. Can you please share the amount of investments your 
service has made to improve unaccompanied military housing using FSRM 
funds? Please include how this amount equals or surpasses the required 
five percent of the estimated replacement cost of the total inventory 
of unaccompanied housing.
    Ms. Coulson. Army has requested $0.8B in FY 24 to improve 
unaccompanied permanent party housing in FSRM funding. This includes a 
portion of sustainment funding aimed at replacing building components, 
whole building restoration & modernization projects, and military 
construction for new and replacement barracks. This significant 
investment is approximately 12% of the FY23 replacement cost defined as 
remaining service potential in Section 2814 of FY22 NDAA. Army has 
interpreted Net Book Value to provide the best correlation with that 
definition. Note, if investments were just limited to the FSRM portion, 
the investment would be 7.3%.
    Ms. Jacobs. When your service places an MHPI housing partner on a 
``performance improvement plan,'' is that public information?
    Ms. Coulson. Any Performance improvement Plan (PIPs) issued by the 
Army to an MHPI housing company can be obtained by making a request for 
the plan pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The plan is 
releasable under FOIA except for those portions that contain trade 
secrets, commercial or financial information that is confidential or 
privileged and any information protected by the Privacy Act. Outside of 
releasing pursuant to FOIA, the Army does not make PIPs available to 
the public.
    Ms. Jacobs. What concerns are severe enough to warrant a housing 
partner be issued a ``letter of concern'' or be placed on a performance 
improvement plan?
    Ms. Coulson. A letter of concern is issued for immediate, wide-
spread, or systemic issues that violate the terms of a company's lease 
or business agreements. Letters of concern are typically issued as the 
prelude to more formal notifications such as notices of non-compliance 
or default. Performance improvement plans are utilized when the issues 
of concern are not immediately resolved or the Army lacks confidence 
that the Project Company will comprehensively address the issues' root 
causes.
    Ms. Jacobs. How many and which housing partners have been issued a 
``letter of concern'' or been placed on a performance improvement plan 
in the past 5 years? Please provide a complete list, and this can come 
back in CUI form if needed.
    Ms. Coulson. Four formal letters of concern have been issued to 
Army privatized housing providers over the past five years and are 
summarized as follows:
    July 2022--BBC--Fort Gordon (Eisenhower)--Notice of Non-Compliance 
with Condition 13a--Failure to maintain Lessee Owned Housing located 
within the leasehold in a safe condition.
    April 2021--Corvias--Fort Liberty--Letter of Concern on doubts 
about the adequacy of oversight by Corvias, and particularly at those 
having a history of moisture-related issues.
    June 2020--BBC--Fort Story--Letter of Concern regarding maintenance 
of the historic Cape Henry House and compliance with the Programmatic 
Agreement and VA (state) Historic Preservation Office for proper 
preservation or demolition of the structure.
    May 2020--Lendlease--Fort Campbell--Letter of Concern regarding 
tenant complaints regarding potential LBP notices and LBP maintenance 
and renovations.
    Additional items of concern have been included in in other 
correspondence to housing providers regarding issues associated with 
survey results, comprehensive reviews, Ground Lease Compliance 
Inspections, site visits and project reviews by Army leadership.
    Ms. Jacobs. How are your services disseminating information for new 
and existing residents in MHPI about their rights?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army is committed to ensuring robust communication 
with service members and families who live in privatized Army housing. 
As part of these efforts, the Army provides a Plain Language Briefing 
(PLB) to residents 30 days prior to signing a lease to ensure service 
members and families understand all aspects of the lease and housing 
managers can respond to any questions. The briefing, which is required 
by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, provides the 
resident a description of the rights and resources available to them 
under their lease and the Tenant Bill of Rights. It also provides 
points of contact for the Garrison's Army Housing Office as well as 
privatized housing providers.
    The Army plans to update the PLB and issue Military Housing 
Privatization Initiative PLB Policy by 30 November 2023 and review 
annually thereafter. This policy will codify roles and responsibilities 
of the Army Housing Office with regards to providing the PLB and 
required check-ins, as well as timelines for the delivery of those 
touchpoints. This policy will require that Army Housing Offices check 
in with residents 15 and 60 days after moving into a new home. This 
requirement will also be part of the next update to the Army's 
privatized housing guide--the Portfolio and Asset Management Handbook--
anticipated within the next six months. The Army will also issue 
implementation guidance to address the requirements associated with the 
Corrective Action Plan to resolve concerns identified in the GAO Audit 
105377- Military Housing: DOD Can Further Strengthen Oversight of its 
Privatized Housing Program.
    Ms. Jacobs. When issues in private military housing arise and 
residents need to go through the formal dispute resolution process, how 
are you tracking dispute resolutions and their outcomes? What are your 
services doing to ensure that residents know where to contact their 
tenant advocates?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army's Installation Management Command tracks all 
dispute resolutions, both formal and informal, and their outcomes. To 
date, the Army has informally resolved 45 of the 52 disputes initiated 
across its privatized housing portfolio. The remaining seven cases were 
addressed using the formal dispute resolution process. Concerns 
reported to the GAO from residents on lack of information regarding the 
process has driven the need for a corrective action plan to update the 
Plain Language Brief (PLB), which is required by the FY 2020 NDAA, to 
be provided to residents before they sign a lease with a housing 
provider and again following lease signing. The briefing provides the 
rights and resources available to the resident, as well as points of 
contact for the Garrison's Army Housing Office (AHO) and privatized 
housing providers.
    The dispute resolution process, as a component of the Tenant Bill 
of Rights (TBoR), gives residents a secure basis for negotiation with 
the private housing provider. Further, by clarifying the 
responsibilities of all involved, it reiterates the Army's role as an 
advocate for the resident through on-the-ground support from the AHO. 
This briefing includes information about the identity and contact 
details of the Army Housing Manager, who is the Military Tenant 
Advocate, ensuring that residents know where to reach out in case of 
disputes or concerns.
    The Army will also be creating informational tools and produce 
handouts to offer residents additional material on TBoR, PLB, Dispute 
Resolution, and contact information for the Army Housing Manager.
    Ms. Jacobs. Would you consider eliminating barracks management as a 
collateral duty? Additionally, would you consider an alternative plan 
of building management certifications as part of training courses?
    Ms. Coulson. With the opportunity provided to the Army to improve 
its manpower posture within Permanent Party Unaccompanied Housing, we 
would staff the barracks management team with either dedicated full 
time military members or civilian managers. The Army is receptive to 
requiring building management certifications as part of the training 
courses.
    Ms. Jacobs. Can you please share the amount of investments your 
service has made to improve unaccompanied military housing using FSRM 
funds? Please include how this amount equals or surpasses the required 
five percent of the estimated replacement cost of the total inventory 
of unaccompanied housing.
    Mr. Thompson. NAVY: The Navy invested almost $550M in FSRM funds in 
Unaccompanied Housing (UH) since 2019. The FY24 FSRM budget for UH is 
$165M surpassing the 5% threshold. Navy UH minimum investment based on 
the FY22 NDAA SEC 2814 language is $88M/year so the FY24 amount is 
nearly double the minimum requirements.
    USMC: In FY24, $221M is planned for restoration and modernization 
projects. This amount surpasses the 5% threshold which is calculated at 
$213M per year. The Marine Corps exceeds this requirement with an 
average investment of $218M per year in sustainment, and restoration 
and modernization projects
    Ms. Jacobs. When your service places an MHPI housing partner on a 
``performance improvement plan,'' is that public information?
    Mr. Thompson. The DON's MHPI business agreements do not provide for 
``performance improvement plans.'' Rather, when the Navy has concerns 
or is dissatisfied with MHPI Partner's performance under the governing 
business agreements, those agreements allow the DON to issue letters of 
concern or dissatisfaction. In those letters, the Navy asks for the 
Partner to provide a corrective action plan to remedy issue(s). In the 
event the Partner does not correct the issue and their performance 
continues to fall short of requirements, the DON can issue a Cure 
Notice. If an issue is not cured, a Default can be initiated.
    The DON cannot make any letters of dissatisfaction or cure notices 
public, as they are business proprietary information. Unless the MHPI 
Company approves it, the DON does not publicly release MHPI corporate 
structures and relationships, key personnel, performance, technical 
approaches, strategy, or financial and pricing data. Failure to control 
information in a DON MHPI business agreement or otherwise obtained from 
a MHPI PPV may violate the Trade Secrets Act (18 U.S.C. 
Sec. Sec. 1905).
    Ms. Jacobs. How is the Navy ensuring oversight of the project 
owners when it comes to privatized barracks?
    Mr. Thompson. DON oversight processes for Privatized Family Housing 
and Privatized Barracks include similar robust oversight and leadership 
engagement processes that are in place with Family Housing. The Navy 
conducts various oversight activities of the privatized barracks 
project owners. Using a monthly Monitoring Matrix, the Navy ensures 
adherence to agreements. Examples include reviewing annual budgets and 
incentive fee requests, and conducting Site Assessments. In addition, 
Navy conducts tenant satisfaction surveys, reviews those results, and 
monitors action plans to address tenant concerns.
    One unique aspect of the Navy's Unaccompanied Housing (UH) MHPI 
portfolio is that it consists of mid/high rise buildings which raise 
structural concerns that low rise buildings do not. As such, last year 
the Navy published guidance to the UH MHPI Companies to perform 
structural inspections, and associated maintenance plans, to assure the 
ongoing structural integrity and longevity of these facilities.
    The Marine Corps does not have privatized barracks but is 
conducting a feasibility study at various locations.
    Ms. Jacobs. What concerns are severe enough to warrant a housing 
partner be issued a ``letter of concern'' or be placed on a performance 
improvement plan?
    Mr. Thompson. Letters of concern or dissatisfaction are issued when 
the Navy has other concerns or is dissatisfied with Partner's 
performance as defined in the business agreements. Performance issues 
are typically a result of persistent Asset Management or Property 
Management issues that the Managing Member fails to address. Some 
examples of issues that can prompt formal communication include failure 
to prepare units for incoming residents, poor maintenance request 
response/completion quality or timeliness, poor condition of homes, and 
poor reporting quality and/or timeliness.
    Additionally, after the conclusion of our annual tenant 
satisfaction surveys, Property Managers who score below 70 must prepare 
an Action Plan and report back to the DON on their progress in 
remedying problem areas. Installation and Region DON housing oversight 
personnel spot check issues on site
    Ms. Jacobs. How many and which housing partners have been issued a 
``letter of concern'' or been placed on a performance improvement plan 
in the past 5 years? Please provide a complete list, and this can come 
back in CUI form if needed.
    Mr. Thompson. Below, please see the number of instances where Navy 
or USMC issued a Notice to Cure or a Letter of Dissatisfaction to each 
DON MHPI Partner in the past 5 years.
      Hunt--13
      Balfour Beatty--11
      Liberty Military Housing--9
      Lendlease--7
      Landmark--3
      Patrician--3
      Clark--1
    Ms. Jacobs. How will the Navy enforce their Bill of Rights & 
Responsibilities for unaccompanied service members living in barracks? 
How will complaints and successes be tracked? What standards will be 
used for remediation?
    Mr. Thompson. NAVY: The Unaccompanied Housing (UH) Bill of Rights 
and Responsibilities (BoR&R) is a covenant between the Navy and the UH 
resident. The resident acknowledges receipt of the BoR&R during check-
in. Residents can elevate their concerns to UH management and/or the 
military chain of command for resolution without fear of retaliation.
    The UH BoR&R is also a covenant between the UH resident and the 
Navy. The Navy relies on the military chain of command to ensure 
compliance with standards of cleanliness through the command inspection 
program. The Navy measures performance monthly by the reduction in 
number of complaints received and failed inspections. The Navy Housing 
Service Center provides standardized dispute resolution services if 
issues cannot be resolved by the Command or UH Management
    Ms. Jacobs. How are your services disseminating information for new 
and existing residents in MHPI about their rights?
    Mr. Thompson. NAVY: The Navy Housing Service Center (HSC) has an 
active outreach program. When a Service Member contacts the HSC to 
apply for Public Private Venture (PPV) housing, the Tenant Bill of 
Rights and Responsibilities and the plain language brief are provided 
as part of the application process. The plain language brief provides 
standardized and installation-specific housing information. The Tenant 
Bill of Rights and Responsibilities is also provided to military 
tenants by the MHPI partners as part of the universal lease and is 
available on the CNIC Housing website. The plain language brief is 
provided again 30 days after move-in.
    The HSC contacts new residents 15 and 60 days after move-in to 
discuss the move-in process, identify issues, and to educate the tenant 
on the various services available to them through the HSC. The HSC 
continues distributing information through public events such as town 
halls, community meetings, and events to increase awareness of the 
support provided by the installation and the HSC.
    USMC: The Marine Corps, in conjunction with our PPV Partners, 
utilize multiple communication channels to provide information to 
tenants regarding their rights. Each resident receives the Plain 
Language Briefing, a straightforward explanation of the MHPI Tenant 
Bill of Rights, covering the entire leasing process, including lease 
signing, move in/move-out, maintenance, rights as a tenant, dispute 
resolution, local contact information, and more. Additionally, the 
Military Housing Office contacts 100% of new tenants within 30 days of 
move-in to verify satisfaction with the move-in process and ensure the 
Plain Language Briefing is received and understood per recent 
amendments to the MHPI. Finally, the Marine Corps provides and 
maintains a tenant portal web site, places posters around the 
neighborhoods regarding tenant rights under the MHPI, and conducts 
Resident Advisory Boards and Town Halls to keep tenants informed and up 
to date.
    Ms. Jacobs. When issues in private military housing arise and 
residents need to go through the formal dispute resolution process, how 
are you tracking dispute resolutions and their outcomes? What are your 
services doing to ensure that residents know where to contact their 
tenant advocates?
    Mr. Thompson. NAVY: Formal dispute resolutions and their outcomes 
are tracked in enterprise Military Housing (eMH), the DOD's 
authoritative data source for housing operations. The Navy uses an 
informal dispute resolution process and, if necessary, uses the 
prescribed Formal Dispute Resolution process.
    The Navy HSCs at each installation are equipped to assist Military 
Members with their housing issues to include issues with privatized 
housing companies.
    The Navy proactively provides information to tenants through 
installation websites, MWR websites, Fleet and Family Service Centers, 
and social media. The materials, such as flyers and social media 
postings/graphics, describe services available to Military Members at 
the HSCs. These materials are continuously updated. The HSCs 
communicate at key milestones throughout PPV tenancy.
    USMC: Each Marine Corps Military Housing Office (MHO) tracks formal 
disputes through the enterprise Military Housing (eMH), which is the 
DOD enterprise information management system and authoritative data 
source for operations and inventory management of DOD housing. 
Recently, eMH built and implemented Dispute Resolution Process (DRP) 
data fields within the Complaints Module to assist in data collection 
and the formal tracking of disputes. Per DRP Policy Letter 2-22 and the 
DON PPV Handbook, the Marine Corps provides a report on dispute 
resolution findings to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy--
Environment, Installations, and Energy (ASN(EI&E)) on a quarterly 
basis.
    Additionally, residents receive a Plain Language Briefing (PLB) 
upon lease signing and 30 days after move-in to ensure they fully 
understand the MHPI Tenant Bill of Rights, which includes DRP 
information. The PLB lays out the informal and formal DRP and provides 
points of contact to assist in the process.
    Finally, the Marine Corps developed DRP Training and held sessions 
on 2 and 9 November 2021 for over 150 MHO personnel. Roles and 
responsibilities were clearly identified within the training. Further, 
the Marine Corps is developing an MHO Job Aid to identify how the DRP 
works and to communicate to MHO personnel roles and responsibilities of 
the MHO during the process.
    Ms. Jacobs. Would you consider eliminating barracks management as a 
collateral duty? Additionally, would you consider an alternative plan 
of building management certifications as part of training courses?
    Mr. Thompson. Navy UH, except at austere locations, is managed by a 
full-time civilian workforce. The Navy has an established training 
curriculum for UH management and staff with courses offered, in person 
or virtual, by the Navy Housing Learning Center in Jacksonville, FL. 
The Navy continuously reviews the training curriculum to improve 
performance. The Navy utilizes the Certified Defense Unaccompanied 
Housing Manager Courses provided by the Military Housing and Lodging 
Institute as part of our training curriculum.
    The Marine Corps will institute a new approach to barracks 
management that directly addresses Recommendation 28 of the GAO-23-
105797 report. This new model will replace Marines with civilians to 
professionalize the workforce and address systemic backlog issues such 
as tracking inventory and maintenance. A training framework for the 
civilian workforce will be developed and include building management as 
a core competency.
    Ms. Jacobs. Can you please share the amount of investments your 
service has made to improve unaccompanied military housing using FSRM 
funds? Please include how this amount equals or surpasses the required 
five percent of the estimated replacement cost of the total inventory 
of unaccompanied housing.
    Mr. Moriarty. For permanent party dorms, the FY22 NDAA, Sec. 2814, 
required DAF to invest no less than 5% of the remaining service 
potential over the FY22-26 FYDP. This equates to approximately $1.1B on 
permanent party dorms for FY22-26. We are focused on meeting the NDAA 
requirement. In FY23 DAF funded 36 projects at $276M and plans to spend 
$230M for 33 projects in FY24. Similar investments are in the planning 
stages to occur through FY26. The DAF believes this level of investment 
is adequate to keep our dormitories good as in accordance with the OSD 
standard.
    Ms. Jacobs. When your service places an MHPI housing partner on a 
``performance improvement plan,'' is that public information?
    Mr. Moriarty. It is DAF's understanding that if a MHPI housing 
partner company is placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP), DAF 
can release the specific MHPI housing partner company name and their 
respective installations but cannot release the specific Lines of 
Efforts (LOEs) required to satisfy the PIP as they are considered 
commercial confidential material and therefore not releasable to the 
public.
    Ms. Jacobs. What concerns are severe enough to warrant a housing 
partner be issued a ``letter of concern'' or be placed on a performance 
improvement plan?
    Mr. Moriarty. It is DAF's understanding that if a MHPI housing 
partner company is placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP), DAF 
can release the specific MHPI housing partner company name and their 
respective installations but cannot release the specific Lines of 
Efforts (LOEs) required to satisfy the PIP as they are considered 
commercial confidential material and therefore not releasable to the 
public.
    Ms. Jacobs. How many and which housing partners have been issued a 
``letter of concern'' or been placed on a performance improvement plan 
in the past 5 years? Please provide a complete list, and this can come 
back in CUI form if needed.
    Mr. Moriarty. Our transaction documents call for performance 
improvement plans when there are severe systemic concerns with the 
performance of a project owner. Since the inception of the MHPI 
program, DAF has placed two of our privatized project owners on a 
performance improvement plan. Those two project owners are Hunt 
Military Communities and Balfour Beatty Companies. Between the two 
project owners, they manage 19 of 31 DAF MHPI projects, representing 46 
of 67 DAF Locations with privatized housing.
    Both project owners were identified as requiring placement on a 
performance improvement plan due to systemic operational and resident 
satisfaction issues identified at multiple installations within their 
respective privatized housing portfolios.
    Ms. Jacobs. How are your services disseminating information for new 
and existing residents in MHPI about their rights?
    Mr. Moriarty. Per Department of the Air Force Instruction (DAFI) 
requirements, Military Housing Offices (MHO) at each DAF MHPI project 
installation are required to provide each incoming prospective Service 
member tenant with an in-person new tenant briefing, including a plain-
language overview of the tenant lease, prior to the Service member 
signing their MHPI housing lease agreement. The new tenant briefing 
includes a review of tenant's responsibilities regarding the assigned 
unit and surrounding common grounds, tenant liability and dispute 
resolution process information, disclosure of environmental and safety 
hazards, processes for reporting of maintenance and repair 
requirements, and details in preparation for lease termination. 
Oversight processes are in place to ensure no lease agreement is signed 
by Service members until the unit has been inspected and approved by 
the MHO for occupancy, and the incoming Service member tenant briefing 
is completed. In addition, all MHPI housing residents are invited to 
participate in town halls and resident councils led by installation 
commanders or their deputy. These forums allow residents to raise 
issues, request information on the Tenant bill of rights, learn about 
installation resources available to address issues with their housing 
unit, and understand actions underway within their MHPI communities.
    Ms. Jacobs. When issues in private military housing arise and 
residents need to go through the formal dispute resolution process, how 
are you tracking dispute resolutions and their outcomes? What are your 
services doing to ensure that residents know where to contact their 
tenant advocates?
    Mr. Moriarty. Per Department of the Air Force Instruction (DAFI) 
requirements, Military Housing Offices (MHO) at each DAF MHPI project 
installation are required to track all disputes, both formal and 
informal within eMH (DAF housing system of record). On a quarterly 
basis, MHOs are also required to send consolidated dispute resolution 
statistics, to include resolutions and outcomes, through the 
Secretariat level to ensure all relevant stakeholders have adequate 
awareness.
    The DAF MHO briefs residents regarding the dispute resolution 
process and provides them the Resident Advocate and legal assistance 
points of contact during the new resident move in brief. The MHO also 
provides the Tenant Bill of Rights and Dispute Resolution brochure to 
all new tenants. These rights are reinforced at Town Hall meetings and 
with other information tools such as refrigerator magnets and on-base 
signage. The DAF continues to incorporate lessons learned from past 
formal disputes to provide greater clarity.
    Ms. Jacobs. Would you consider eliminating barracks management as a 
collateral duty? Additionally, would you consider an alternative plan 
of building management certifications as part of training courses?
    Mr. Moriarty. The Department of the Air Force (DAF) assigns 
Unaccompanied Housing (UH) Managers/Superintendents, and Airmen Dorm 
Leaders (ADLs) to manage daily operations of permanent party dorms as 
their assigned duty (it is not a collateral or additional duty). There 
are various courses these Airmen complete as an UH Manager/ADL.
    ADLs are selected and assigned an Air Force Specialty Code of 
8H000, per the Air Force Enlisted Classification. Military Housing 
Offices work in concert with Installation Command Chief Master 
Sergeants to ensure nominated members meet the quality force indicators 
and leadership traits required of an ADL.
    Currently, all UH staff members must enroll in the Unaccompanied 
Housing Leadership (in-residence) course conducted by the Air Force 
Institute of Technology upon assignment selection for the UH position. 
In addition, these individuals complete the on-line Air Force Civil 
Engineer Center facility management course and attend the base-provided 
facility management course. To ensure consistency and completion of all 
DAF assigned duties, their roles and responsibilities are identified 
and recorded on AF Form 797, Job Qualification Standard.'' DAF will 
assess whether any further training or certification program is needed.
                                 ______
                                 
                 QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. STRICKLAND
    Ms. Strickland. There is a growing body of research that indicates 
a built environment can have physiological and psychological benefits. 
``An increasing amount of evidence shows that wood has beneficial 
effects in almost all parts of the indoor climate. It helps reduce 
stress, blood pressure and heart-rate as well as allowing for more 
creativity and productivity in the workplace. Wood is also an important 
part of what's called biophilic design; our desire to be connected with 
the natural environment.'' (https://mithun.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/
12/MassTimberSchools_Rep ort.pdf)
    To what extent has the your service considered the Biophilic 
benefits of mass timber construction? Does the Department offer any 
contracting preferences for construction materials that offer these 
types of benefits that would therefore increase the quality of life of 
our servicemembers? If not, what would the Department need in order to 
include Biophilic benefits in contract consideration?
    Ms. Coulson. The Army plans to pilot the use of mass timber in a 
single soldier housing (barracks) project at Joint Base Lewis McChord 
with the intent to use lessons learned from that project to expand use 
of mass timber if economical to do so.
    We have surveyed academic research sources and have met with 
university researchers to identify actionable data on the biophilic 
benefits of wood in the indoor environment. This research is ongoing. 
These findings will be augmented with the occupant outcomes and user 
satisfaction data collected from our mass timber pilot project.
    Based on the results of the pilot project and our ongoing research, 
the Army and the Corps of Engineers will seek to balance definable 
quality of life benefits with any added costs from mass timber 
construction premiums. One of the objectives of the pilot project is to 
provide this type of actionable data.
    Ms. Strickland. There is a growing body of research that indicates 
a built environment can have physiological and psychological benefits. 
``An increasing amount of evidence shows that wood has beneficial 
effects in almost all parts of the indoor climate. It helps reduce 
stress, blood pressure and heart-rate as well as allowing for more 
creativity and productivity in the workplace. Wood is also an important 
part of what's called biophilic design; our desire to be connected with 
the natural environment.'' (https://mithun.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/
12/MassTimberSchools_Rep ort.pdf)
    To what extent has the your service considered the Biophilic 
benefits of mass timber construction? Does the Department offer any 
contracting preferences for construction materials that offer these 
types of benefits that would therefore increase the quality of life of 
our servicemembers? If not, what would the Department need in order to 
include Biophilic benefits in contract consideration?
    Mr. Thompson. The DON is currently investigating a range of 
innovative and sustainable building techniques to incorporate into 
future pilot projects to focus on keeping people comfortable, not the 
building itself. Features like passive mechanical systems, natural 
lighting, multi-zone heating and cooling, integrated designs, and 
natural features (green walls, roofs, etc) can increase comfort levels, 
as well as physical and emotional well-being, for personnel working and 
living inside our facilities, as well as making systems more efficient 
and easier to maintain.
    In addition, in accordance with section 2861 of the FY22 NDAA, the 
DON is executing a Sustainable Building Material Pilot Project (Project 
P-1334, Child Development Center at Naval Support Activity Hampton 
Roads, VA) in FY24. While still in the initial phases of material 
selection and design, the DON is considering a wide range of 
sustainable materials such as mass timber, brick and phenolic siding, 
synthetic composite slate-like tile shingles, and fiberglass window 
frames. Lessons learned from this pilot project will be incorporated 
into future design criteria to ensure a more sustainable shore 
portfolio.
    Ms. Strickland. There is a growing body of research that indicates 
a built environment can have physiological and psychological benefits. 
``An increasing amount of evidence shows that wood has beneficial 
effects in almost all parts of the indoor climate. It helps reduce 
stress, blood pressure and heart-rate as well as allowing for more 
creativity and productivity in the workplace. Wood is also an important 
part of what's called biophilic design; our desire to be connected with 
the natural environment.'' (https://mithun.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/
12/MassTimberSchools_Rep ort.pdf)
    To what extent has the your service considered the Biophilic 
benefits of mass timber construction? Does the Department offer any 
contracting preferences for construction materials that offer these 
types of benefits that would therefore increase the quality of life of 
our servicemembers? If not, what would the Department need in order to 
include Biophilic benefits in contract consideration?
    Mr. Moriarty. The DAF continually reviews the costs and benefits of 
material selection to balance health, energy, life-cycle costs, and 
mission effectiveness of its selections. The DAF has not considered or 
evaluated the Biophilic benefits of mass timber construction. However, 
the Air Force is currently evaluating projects as candidates for mass 
timber to meet the requirements highlighted in Section 2815 of S.2226 
and anticipated in the final Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense 
Authorization Act. No decision has been made on which project(s) will 
be proposed.
    Additionally, the DAF does not offer any contracting preferences 
for mass timber or similar construction materials. The DAF remains 
committed to allowing contractors to provide innovative solutions and 
concepts for consideration to meet our Military Construction 
requirements.
    We promote the use of alternate material selections by allowing 
contractors to offer value engineering proposals in the design-build 
process. The use of timber has not made broad gains in areas such as 
dormitories, child-care centers and other QoL facilities due to its 
lower strength-to-weight ratio, higher flammability, and vulnerability 
to wood boring insects and rot. However, timber remains the most 
utilized resource for family housing construction.

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