From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Oversight of Privatized Military Housing Description: Elizabeth Field joins the Watchdog Report to talk about how the Department of Defense handles oversight of privately-owned and privately-managed military housing in the United States. Related GAO Work: GAO-20-281, Military Housing: DOD Needs to Strengthen Oversight and Clarify Its Role in the Management of Privatized Housing Released: March 2020 [ Background Music ] [Elizabeth Field:] And we really found problems related to privatized housing at every location that we visited. [Matt Oldham:] Welcome to GAO's "Watchdog Report," your source for news and information from the US Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. In 1996, Congress enacted the Military Housing Privatization Initiative, giving responsibility to private-sector developers for things like construction, renovation, maintenance, and repair for around 99% of military housing in the United States. And with me to talk about a GAO report on DOD's oversight of this program is Elizabeth Field, a Defense Capabilities and Management director. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Elizabeth. [Elizabeth Field:] Glad to be here. [Matt Oldham:] So why did you look into this? [Elizabeth Field:] So, in the fiscal year 2019 Defense Appropriations Act, Congress included a provision asking GAO to look at how the Military Housing Privatization Initiative was working. And the reason that they wanted us to do that was that they were increasingly hearing from servicemembers and their families who were very concerned about the condition of their privatized homes, complaints about things like mold and pest infestation, and a concern that the Department of Defense was not doing enough to help them address those problems. And so they were very concerned about that and they asked us to take a look. [Matt Oldham:] So could you talk a little bit about how these concerns could affect servicemembers and their family living in privatized military housing? [Elizabeth Field:] Sure. Well, I think we could all understand that it's hard to live in a house or in an apartment that has a problem like mold or pest infestation. Certainly there are concerns that problems like that can lead to health problems. Lead paint is another hazard, of course, that is clearly linked to certain medical problems and that's one of the hazards that does exist in some of the privatized homes. What I think is important to point out related to this program is that there can also be an added problem here, which is that it can have an impact on military readiness. So we heard from servicemembers and their families when we went out into installations and did focus groups that there were some members of the military who had decided they were going to get out. They were not going to stay with their military service because they simply weren't confident that they would have a home that was clean and safe. Similarly, we heard from servicemembers who said that even though they were going to stay in military service, the amount of time and turmoil that they have gone through to deal with the companies that manage their privatized homes has really had an impact on their ability to focus on the job at hand. [Matt Oldham:] So what has DOD been doing about these issues? [Elizabeth Field:] Well, DOD is aware that there have been a lot of concerns in this area, and one of the first things they did was have the Offices of Inspector General in each of the military services do an investigation. They found a lot of the similar things that we found in ours, but they also have started to take other steps. For example, they've had town hall meetings at installations across the country. They have increased efforts to educate and train military staff who are dealing with the privatized housing projects and they have also made it clear what the avenues are for residents if they have a concern with their home and they can get it resolved by working directly with the company. [Matt Oldham:] They have a pretty good idea of how extensive these problems are? [Elizabeth Field:] So I would say no. I think that it's very clear that there is a problem, but one of the issues that we encountered when we did our audit is that there's really no good way of knowing just how extensive the problem is. So, for example, one of the things that we did in our audit was collect work order data from all of the 14 private companies that manage the military privatized housing projects. We looked at over eight million work order records, and these are, you know, records from when a resident calls in a problem and then the maintenance worker is sent out to try to fix it. And what we found is that the data were so unreliable that we couldn't use those to determine the prevalence of any one hazard. Another thing that we looked at to try to get a sense of prevalence and how widespread these problems are was to look at customer satisfaction surveys. This is something that the Department of Defense does annually, and there, again, we found that the data that the Department has collected and produced related to customer satisfaction is so unreliable that that too is not a way to know just how prevalent these problems are. [Matt Oldham:] So it sounds like there have been recent reports of hazards like mold or pest infestation or lead pain in privately-managed military housing. But the Department of Defense may not fully know how widespread some of these problems are. Elizabeth, did you find different information based on geographic area or with the separate branches of the military, or is this a Department-wide issue? [Elizabeth Field:] So we, as I mentioned, went to a number of different installations. We went to ten different military installations in different regions of the country managed by different military departments. We also had an online questionnaire that servicemembers and their families could use to voluntarily provide us information about their experiences. And we really found problems related to privatized housing at every location that we visited. These were problems that occurred in each of the different military departments. Now that of course does not mean that there is a problem in every single home that has been privatized and that there are not some areas where there are some better practices than in others. But our report has recommendations to each of the military departments to strengthen this program as well to the Office of the Secretary of Defense to ensure that there is a greater level of oversight of this program at the highest level possible. [Matt Oldham:] So what else can you DOD do to improve things? [Elizabeth Field:] The first is to get to stronger data, more reliable data. We would like the Department to set some standards for data collection and for analysis of the data. We think that that would really help the Department and Congress have a better grasp on how the program is performing, whether the companies are performing better when it comes to providing quality housing for servicemembers and their families. Another recommendation that we have is to set some expectations, some standards, for the level of oversight that each military department should provide at the installation level so that the private companies are following the terms of their agreements. [Matt Oldham:] Last question, what's the bottom line of this report? [Elizabeth Field:] This is a program that began essentially in 1996. The Department wanted to privatize housing in order to provide better quality homes for servicemembers and their families in less time, and with less government funding than the Department could have done under its traditional military construction process, and that is a reasonable policy decision to make. But in doing so, the Department hands a lot of responsibility over to these private companies. I should note that the private companies actually own the homes that we've been talking about. And so the bottom line is that if that's a decision that the Department wants to make and it has made, then it needs to make sure that it really has strong procedures in place to conduct oversight of these companies. These are long-term, 50-year agreements and we just can't take our eye off the ball. [Matt Oldham:] Elizabeth Field was talking about a GAO report on DOD's oversight of privatized military housing in the United States. Thank you for your time, Elizabeth. [Elizabeth Field:] Thank you. 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