The Army is looking for a new kind of recruit: one who knows how to build a house and can finance multimillion-dollar projects.
Across the nation, base housing is aging, and in some cases, falling apart. Replacing or repairing the units could cost billions. The Army doesn’t have the bucks. But it is working on a plan.
In a landmark pilot program known as the Residential Communities Initiative, or RCI, private developers will renovate or build new housing and maintain it. The Army will supply the renters. Fort Hood, Texas, is one of the first bases to participate in the program.
Military officials increasingly are turning to the private sector for a variety of services, including equipment maintenance and information processing. They hope to save money, increase efficiency and make more effective use of the nation’s men and women in uniform.
At Fort Hood, for example, privatizing means that fewer soldiers may be needed to maintain base housing, and they can focus more on preparing for war.
“It’s pretty hard to tell a soldier that you’re going to send him in harm’s way if you haven’t spent every dime you could on his training, and you’ve taken that money out of training and put it into masonry work,” said Col. David B. Hall, garrison commander at Fort Hood, the sprawling Army installation in Central Texas.
Officials there hope to select a developer by early January and complete a “community management and development plan” by June. The developer could begin work by late next year.
“I have some quarters that are in desperate need of renovation,” said Col. Hall, who’s responsible for Fort Hood’s buildings and infrastructure. “Some quarters are in desperate need of the front end of a bulldozer.”
Of more than 5,700 housing units at Fort Hood, all but about 400 need to be renovated or replaced. The oldest were built in 1948.
In return for taking on the job, the developer is virtually assured of high occupancy, a steady revenue flow and, Col. Hall asserts, “some of the most disciplined renters you will ever have.”
Even though Army housing has its problems, there’s still a high demand for it. The nation’s armed forces have decreased in numbers substantially over the last several years, but many installations still have long waiting lists for base housing.
“One of the contributing reasons for this backlog is that our demographics have changed,” said Lt. Col. Bill Wheelehan, an Army spokesman in Washington. “About 60 percent of the Army is married with children. … We’re getting young men and women enlisting in the Army, and they already have a family.”
A few decades past, especially during the era of the draft, far fewer soldiers had families.
Soldiers who live on base traditionally haven’t paid rent or utilities. Those who live off base receive a housing allowance, although in many cases it falls far short of their actual housing and utility costs.
Under the Army’s privatization program, a housing allowance to soldiers living on base would go directly to the developer. Utilities still would be provided at no cost.
For many families, base housing has other advantages than the monetary savings. Typically, the crime rate on military installations is significantly lower than in the surrounding civilian communities. Schools and other institutions on base are more attuned to the demands that military life place on soldiers and their families.
“At several points in the past year, we’ve gotten up over 4,000 people on the waiting list to move into quarters,” Col. Hall said. “I don’t believe that’s because there are inadequate quarters available out on the civilian market in that quantity. I believe it’s because of what I offer in terms of environment here inside the fence.”
Linda Ellerbe, the wife of an Army staff sergeant, said she feels “more safe and secure” on post.
The Ellerbes came to Fort Hood about four months ago. They signed up for base housing and were 1,634th on the waiting list when Mrs. Ellerbe recently checked. She was told the families who signed up in March 1998 are now getting base quarters.
Her husband, Staff Sgt. Joseph Ellerbe, is on duty in Kuwait. Mrs. Ellerbe and their 13-year-old son live off base. The rent is almost $100 more than their housing allowance. One recent electric bill alone was $184.
While the Army hopes to take some pressure off the waiting lists, the purpose of the initiative is not to move everyone on base. A majority of soldiers do not live in base housing, and that isn’t likely to change.
“Local businesses, a lot of the local infrastructure … do rely on the soldiers … and we like having our soldiers in the local community,” said Lt. Col. Wheelehan. “But we’ve got to balance that with the fact that we need better quality housing on post.”
Congress passed legislation that made the housing privatization program possible in 1996. It applies to all service branches. Critics have complained that the Defense Department has been slow to take advantage of the legislation.
And that may have “created a hesitancy on the part of the housing industry,” said Paul Taibl, a senior official with Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan policy think tank in Washington.
Experts also say that potential developers may worry that that military housing won’t be as lucrative as civilian housing.
Earlier attempts at privatization of housing, both on base and off base, also have encountered difficulties.
In Corpus Christi, for example, the housing allowance for many sailors didn’t cover the rent and utilities at apartments that were built by private developers and partially funded by the Navy. A private builder involved with housing at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota agreed earlier this year to a multimillion-dollar legal settlement after the government alleged that the housing, built in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was poorly designed and constructed.
Army officials have sought to avoid past pitfalls and the plans for Fort Hood differ in many respects from earlier privatization efforts.
In military circles, interest in privatization, or “outsourcing,” is high. Some efforts have been under way for many years.
The military has “some very costly and ambitious modernization plans” and looks to privatization and outsourcing as a way to realize significant savings, according to Steve Koziak, with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, nonprofit public policy institute that focuses on military issues.
As a result, military bases that have operated their own utilities in the past are relying more on the private sector for services. Most bases should be rid of their electrical plants within the next few years.
The bane of soldiers’ existence for generations, “kitchen police”–menial work around the mess hall–essentially has been eliminated by civilian food-service workers. Civilians also typically handle janitorial services.
On the high-tech end, civilian employees service complex electronics such as missile guidance systems and even combat vehicles in the United States and overseas. In some cases, new equipment comes with a warranty and a service contract.
But many experts suggest that there are unanswered questions about how much actually is saved by privatization and outsourcing. And there is some concern that civilian business practices may not work so well in the event of a large-scale war, when demands for supplies or maintenance can skyrocket.
“The whole reason you get lower costs in the private sector is because they’re lean and mean,” Koziak said. “They don’t have a lot of excess capacity sitting around.”
Privatizing jobs that seem far removed from the combat edge can affect the military’s ability to function.
