FORT DRUM — A survey on privatized military housing nationwide found that nearly half of the Fort Drum military families complained about maintenance repairs where they live on post.
The nonprofit Military Family Advisory Network on Wednesday released a survey of 17,000 soldiers and their families living on 160 military installations throughout the United States.
The survey looked at what military families experience while living in privatized housing.
According to the survey, 45 percent of the 10th Mountain Division families reported that maintenance, repairs and remediation was their biggest concerns, followed by problems with mold at 41 percent.
Filth in homes when moving in and structural concerns also were high on their list of issues at 35 percent and 31 percent, respectively.
Housing issues at military installations became a national issue in February when the nonprofit group officials testified before the Senate Armed Forces Committee with initial results of the survey.
The issue also was the subject of town hall meetings at Fort Drum and military installations across the country in which soldiers and their families complained about housing conditions.
Shannon E. Razsadin, executive director of the Military Family Advisory Network, said she was surprised by the sheer numbers of families that responded to the survey, since it was completed in just a weeklong period in February.
“It became abundantly clear to us that we saw the scope of the issue with military families,” she said Wednesday.
The issues with maintenance repairs, mold and filth in homes also were the top complaints in the survey at the 160 military installations, she said.
The final survey contained more details from the organization’s initial report in February, she said,
At the town hall meeting in February, Fort Drum officials expressed outrage with the conditions that were found with privatized housing that existed at on post and promised that they would be immediately rectified.
In response, Fort Drum purchased equipment that tests for mold and trained 16 people on post how to use it. A 24-hour hotline was established for tenants to call to complain about housing issues and problems.
Fort Drum has an office onpost that handles complaints from families about housing issues.
Fort Drum Mountain Community Homes — a partnership between developer Lendlease and the Department of the Army — manages 3,974 units at Fort Drum.
The survey found that housing concerns not only existed locally at military installations, but it’s a systemic problem that exists and needs to be resolved, Ms. Razsadin said.
She echoed Fort Drum officials’ reaction in February that soldiers and their families should not be exposed to such living conditions.
Soldiers also should not have to worry about their families while they are deployed, she said.
The town hall sessions were ordered by Secretary of the Army Mark Esper, who instructed military commanders to correct the problems.
Megan Klosner, Mountain Community Homes project director, didn’t return a reporter’s phone call for comment.