Photo By Jim Hughes | Maj. Gen. Michael C. McCurry, USAACE and Fort Rucker commanding general, CW5 Michael...... read more read more
FORT RUCKER, Ala. -- The commanding general led Fort Rucker leadership and the on-post housing team on a walking town hall through the streets of the Allen Heights neighborhood March 22.
Maj. Gen. Michael C. McCurry, U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence and Fort Rucker commanding general, said that despite the low participation in this walk through the neighborhood, the quarterly town halls would continue.
The visits through the various on-post housing neighborhoods give him the chance to hear about what’s on people’s minds, and also provides an avenue for people to voice complaints on issues they feel aren’t being handled correctly, he said.
“We do these periodically to make sure that people have a chance to talk to me if they have a problem with their quarters, so we can energize the right folks to get them taken care of,” he said. “I want to make sure that we keep gathering people’s input and that I have some direct contact with the people on post, so I know what they’re concerned about.”
The low participation is a bit of a mixed bag, McCurry added.
“You never know what you don’t know until you know it,” he said. “I think with a beautiful day like today, it’s not surprising that people don’t want to stop and talk about their quarters – they’d rather be out taking in the weather.”
It also speaks to the great work being done by the housing team at Fort Rucker that so few problems exist, he added.
“The housing team is strong here at Fort Rucker, and I think an indicator of our success is the occupancy rates here -- we’re always above 95%, almost at 100%, which means you barely have time to renew things in the house before you’re ready to have another family occupy it. That’s a good sign.”
And it’s not the only good sign for on-post housing at Fort Rucker, according to Col. Robert J. Holcombe, Fort Rucker garrison commander, who added that he continuously monitors all complaints put in through the Interactive Customer Evaluation system and those made directly to Corvias.
“I think people, in general, are very satisfied with their housing,” he said. The fact that there aren’t a lot of people out wanting to talk to the CG isn’t really a surprise. Everyone is generally pretty happy with the support they get from Corvias.”
Most of the complaints Holcombe sees have to do with flooring and plumbing, he said.
“Corvias always does a great job of addressing those issues once they are brought up,” Holcombe said. “With the plumbing, a lot of it has to do with some of these houses are old – some were built in the 60s or before. Some of the plumbing, even though the homes may have new fixtures and new pipes in the walls, the main lines under the house and out to the street are still fairly old. Sometimes we get plumbing issues. But again, Corvias is super responsive, and we’ve gone and dug up yards and done whatever it takes to make it right.”
He added that the Fort Rucker housing team also works hard to make sure it heads off problems with homes before they become major issues.
“One of things that we do is whenever someone moves out of one of our Corvias homes, we go through and do a full maintenance inspection of the house that includes a joint inspection with Corvias and the military housing office,” Holcombe said. “We do it together so the Army team can point out things to Corvias maintenance and they can fix it right on the spot. It turns the inventory back to us sooner and allows us to keep more people in their homes – it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Despite its best efforts, though, the housing team can’t prevent every problem in housing, he said, and added that he encourages people to work with Corvias and their chain of command when problems do arise.
But if they feel they aren’t getting anywhere with the normal process, then by all means let leadership know.
“The complaints are helpful – they are good feedback that we get in order to create a better experience for our families who call Fort Rucker home,” the colonel said.
Future town halls are publicized on the Fort Rucker Facebook page in the weeks leading up to the event.
| Date Taken: | 03.23.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.31.2023 11:37 |
| Story ID: | 441664 |
| Location: | FORT RUCKER, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 88 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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