Photo By Roland Schedel | The “Plane to Pillow” program is supporting incoming Soldiers and their families...... read more read more
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WIESBADEN, GERMANY – Customer service is a top priority at U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden’s Housing office. To help incoming service members be better informed about attractive housing options in advance, a new program was introduced. The “Plane to Pillow” program was born to help preserve the Army's resiliency capabilities, especially against the background of the rampant COVID pandemic back in 2020. The program has also saved the garrison $1.4 million in 2020 and $1.8 million in 2021, a welcome side effect.
As the COVID pandemic really took off in Spring 2020, local quarantine regulations in Germany also became stricter. For incoming Soldiers and their families, this meant two weeks of quarantine in Wiesbaden lodging immediately after their arrival. As a result, the Wiesbaden Army Lodge became very occupied, very quickly.
“Too crowded to achieve the desired quarantine effect – while providing guests with all the comfort they deserve,” explained Donald Meyer, Housing Chief at the Garrison’s Directorate of Public Works, about how he came up with the idea for his new program.
"It took us about 30 days on average around this time, for families to move into their housing - today it's three at the most," Meyer says. A lot had to happen for this massive shift. After a complete restructuring of the housing organization itself, there are now three ways to quickly get to the housing of your desired preference.
As a first option, incoming service members can contact housing directly via e-mail. The housing staff will reply directly and send an information package to the service member. Once they provide us with the necessary information, such as PCS orders, completed housing application and flight dates, housing will get in touch with the service member’s new unit. The unit will designate a sponsor, who acts as a direct point of contact for the inbound service member and their family. The sponsor in turn works with the housing office to look at available housing units, meeting the service member and their family’s needs.
The sponsor then shows these dwelling units via online video chat through Facetime, or other platforms, direct to the service member, Additional housing pictures and videos can also be viewed on the Army Housing Online User Services website or the Garrison’s housing website. These helps the service member view the housing units and make a selection, all while still in the United States.
"Sponsors have been doing a great job showing homes, acting just like a realtor, while providing vital information and showing the amenities of the homes and surrounding community,” Meyer recapitulates from his day-to-day work.
The second path to housing, is that there is already an existing contact with the new unit and sponsor. In this case, the sponsor contacts us with the housing needs of the family they are sponsoring. If the appropriate documents are already available, we deliver our housing proposals to the sponsor and the process runs just as quickly as described above.
The third option is when we receive a “gains roster.” With this roster, housing can determine precisely who, where and when the PCS movers arrive, enabling housing to prepare well in advance to serve incoming needs.
“As we know, our residents are really happy with this service. When everything works correctly, the service member will have their new mailing address, new residential address, TV and internet turned on and a welcome box from ACS already in the home. So we have created a win-win situation for all sides by taking care of families and saving the Army money,” said Meyer.
With his more than 15 years’ experience as an Army housing chief in a variety locations, Meyer has worked tirelessly to ensure that garrison housing continues to evolve. No matter if it involves organizational structure pivots, due to a global pandemic, or capitalizing on the availability of updated video technologies – Meyer’s “Plane to Pillow” program has improved the way incoming personnel acquire sufficient quarters upon their arrival here in Wiesbaden.
| Date Taken: | 04.12.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 04.13.2022 02:07 |
| Story ID: | 418315 |
| Location: | WIESBADEN, HESSEN, DE |
| Web Views: | 422 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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