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FORT LEE, Va -- Fulfilling a promise he made 10 months ago, Sen. Mark Warner returned to Fort Lee Friday for another look at privatized housing conditions and a resident roundtable to gauge the level of satisfaction with efforts to correct health and safety deficiencies brought to light last year.
First returning to a Madison Park residence he visited in April, the senator was quickly reminded about the history of maintenance problems in Fort Lee homes and occupant frustrations over living conditions and tenant relationships that have long been less than ideal.
“I’m anxious to hear from additional families,” Warner told reporters after the home visit. “Frankly, this has been a disgrace over the years how our military families have been treated by some of these privatized housing companies. There has been improvement at Fort Lee without a doubt. I think the circumstances here are better than they were last April.
“What I was hoping to hear at the home we just visited was positive comments from a satisfied customer,” the senator said. “We’re not all the way there yet, and I want to get at how we can keep moving forward to fix these problems.”
Years of pent-up resident frustration also were evident at the roundtable discussion held in the community room at the Housing Welcome Center. One spouse noted how her health and that of her daughter’s declined after they moved into their Fort Lee home. She then read from a multi-page list of incidents in which maintenance crews repeatedly identified and repaired leaks and trapped moisture issues that were promoting mold growth. She and several other residents also reported smoke alarms going off in their kitchens every time they cook on the stove. Another military spouse detailed how, over the course of the past year, her family had to be relocated to a hotel on three occasions to accommodate mold remediation work.
Despite these complaints, the residents thanked Fort Lee Family Housing representative Laura Lee – who was hired last year to help address the most urgent resident concerns – for her attentiveness and caring. They also confirmed for Senator Warner that military command team involvement here is making a difference. Hunt Military Communities Vice President John Hoyt and Senior Director of Operations Eric Skeeter frequently expressed apologies and offered to meet with residents and visit homes to assess the deficiencies firsthand.
Senator Warner made sure each military member and spouse in the room had an opportunity to speak. As the session drew to a close, he complimented the Fort Lee command team for its actions to improve oversight and quality control. The measures include hiring additional Garrison Housing Office agents who conduct 100 percent follow-up checks on emergency work orders and perform home inspections between occupants. A housing hotline (804-734-6300) has been established, and resident town halls are conducted each quarter.
Garrison Commander Col. Hollie Martin said a major change since last year is that any outstanding maintenance or repair work in a home must be completed before new residents move into it.
“No family will move in until there’s no work order to be submitted,” Martin said. “It’s a concern I’ve had since the first town hall last February. It seemed we were just putting a family right into a home, whether it was ready or not. No longer will we do that. If there are 20 outstanding work orders, all of those must be corrected before that family signs for the home. That’s the way we should be doing business here. (Every family) should start with a clean slate. They should have confidence they're moving into a safe home. That’s just common sense to me.”
Warner applauded such actions, saying the relationship between the command and privatized companies should be “a bit adversarial,” meaning leaders are advocating for military members and families, not the contracted housing provider.
The Resident Bill of Rights recently passed into law when the president signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act is the leverage military commanders and privatized housing residents needed to ensure higher standards are achieved and unregulated business practices are controlled, the senator asserted.
The bill gives commanders the authority to arbitrate and resolve housing-tenant disputes. It entitles residents to work order history reports for the home they’re moving into. The measure protects whistleblowers from reprisals. It prohibits home rental fee charges in excess of the service members’ housing stipend and suspends a program that saddled some families with excessive utility bills.
“More importantly, it gives us the right to withhold rent payments and incentive fees to the privatized housing companies if they’re not performing to accepted standards,” Warner said. “Realistically, this is a business proposition. If you’re not getting quality housing, you shouldn’t be paying and the taxpayer shouldn’t be footing the bill.”
He then plugged the importance of work order submissions, noting how they are “trackable” and serve as needed documentation for resident complaints and disputes. Hunt Communities recently introduced the Rent Café app that allows residents to submit, track and provide feedback on submitted and completed work orders. Anyone having difficulties accessing or establishing an app account should contact the housing staff for walk-through assistance.
Wrapping up the discussion, Warner said bluntly, “I don’t know how any of us can ever feel satisfied that our military families were living in conditions where people were getting sick – where kids were getting sick – on a regular basis. That’s not even close to acceptable.
“This is one issue where there is no division among the people I work with – Democrat, Republican, Independent, you name it,” he further noted. “It’s an embarrassment that we’re in this situation. … I was hoping to hear that in the last year or even the last few months it was getting better. … I’m going to be back, and if these same families are here three months from now with the same complaints, watch out.”
| Date Taken: | 02.25.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 02.25.2020 09:33 |
| Story ID: | 363822 |
| Location: | FORT LEE, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 135 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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