Proposed budget boosts DOD housing program

  • Published
  • By Gerry J. Gilmore
  • American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  The Defense Department is set to replace all of its substandard military family housing units by 2009, a senior DOD official told a congressional committee March 3.

The proposed fiscal 2005 DOD budget "allows the department to stay on track to eliminate nearly all of its inadequate military family housing units by fiscal 2007, with complete elimination by 2009," said Philip W. Grone in prepared remarks for the House Subcommittee on Military Construction. He is the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment.

Out of its $401.7 billion fiscal 2005 budget proposal, Mr. Grone said DOD officials are requesting $4.2 billion to construct, operate and maintain military family housing. That money represents a $200 million increase from last year's budget, he said.

And the $1.6 billion slated for family housing construction in fiscal 2005 is $400 million more than last year's budget, Mr. Grone said. It will be used for both traditional, military-sourced construction projects and those provided by privatization agreements.

"Our current plans are to privatize a cumulative total of over 136,000 units by the end of FY 2005," Mr. Grone said. He said DOD officials expect to privatize more than 59 percent of its existing family housing in the continental United States and territories by then.

Using privatization for military family housing projects "speeds fixing our inadequate housing in comparison to the traditional military-construction process" while providing a quality product, Mr. Grone said.

"Our current plan is to privatize the majority of our CONUS family housing," he said.

The number of inadequate military family housing units across DOD dropped from 180,000 in 2001 to 120,000 in 2003, Mr. Grone said.

By the end of fiscal 2005 "we will have reduced the number of inadequate housing units to roughly 61,000," he said.

DOD officials are also committed to "help servicemembers who live off base to afford good quality housing and improve their options," Mr. Grone said.

Therefore the proposed DOD budget request "includes necessary funding to ensure that the typical servicemember living in the private sector will have zero out-of-pocket housing expenses," he said.