EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Energy John W. Henderson toured base privatized housing here Feb. 28.
During the tour, the secretary learned the current condition of Eglin housing; which aligns with Air Force efforts to improve the Military Housing Privatization Initiative Program across the service.
Eglin’s housing residents responded to the 2019 housing survey with an 88.1% satisfaction ranking, earning Eglin the seventh best out of 63 Air Force bases. However, Henderson said the Air Force continues to strive for improvements across the board.
“We’re giving a number of tools to our commanders to help with oversight, this includes increased personnel,” said Henderson of the 218 new housing management personnel the Air Force intends to hire. This increase essentially doubles the size of current Air Force Housing Management staff.
“That will help cover down on 100% change of occupancy maintenance, as well as doing better quality assurance on the maintenance that’s being done on the homes in a timely manner,” he said.
Henderson added there is a movement in the Air Force to empower the residents to have a bigger role in how the privatized housing provider earns incentive fees.
The intent of the restructured incentive fees is to incorporate resident feedback from work order surveys and annual satisfaction surveys into decisions on whether to award incentive fees to MPHI project partners.
“This is another resident incentive to get them to complete the surveys that covers, not just the quality of the maintenance, but also how the resident feels the maintenance crew accomplished the work,” said Henderson. “We want to know how the resident experience with the maintenance staff went; did they do a good job. How was the resident communicated with? How were they treated if they had to be moved? Was there damage to the house as a result of the maintenance. Resident feedback is an important factor in how the privatized housing companies make their income going forward.”
Another tool housing residents are being empowered with is through the newly-signed Tenant Bill of Rights
This Bill of Rights is an important tool that will help residents navigate their rights and expectations within housing from the privatized owners. Currently, 15 of the 18 “rights” are complete.
The three rights not yet completed include the right to access to maintenance history, the right to a process for dispute resolution, and the right to withhold rent until disputes area resolved. These rights require the Services to re-negotiate with the project owner companies participating in the privatized housing initiative.
“With the level of attention and amount of time that our Secretary and Chief spend on this, it’s an absolute priority to them for the health and safety of our Airmen. Whether it’s in privatized housing, or the dorm, or military housing, it’s at the top of their priority list. They’re spending a lot of time making sure we get this right,” he said.
For any residents who are hesitant to speak up about the housing issues, or fear repercussions, Henderson said retribution from any level is unacceptable. The Air Force has many channels available to voice concerns, like the housing office, the staff judge advocate, the inspector general, and a hotline at (800) 482-6431.