Murray, Warren, Colleagues Push Pentagon on Plans to Address Substandard Housing Conditions for Servicemembers, Including at Joint Base Lewis-McChord

ICYMI: Senator Murray, Rep. McMorris Rodgers Press for Housing Repairs at Fairchild Air Force Base for Servicemembers and Families – MORE HERE

Lawmakers: “It is crucial for DoD to take additional actions to increase oversight of privatized housing and ensure that service members and their families have access to safe and comfortable housing on base.”

Washington, D.C. – This week, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, joined Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) in sending a letter to U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Lloyd Austin requesting information on DoD’s plans to address the prevalence of mold, lead-based paint, and asbestos in housing for America’s servicemembers—as well as the confusing, confidential, and biased process to address disputes with the private housing companies. The full text of the senators’ letter is available HERE.

“We write in regard to concerning reports about asbestos, lead-based paint, and mold in military housing and DoD’s implementation of the formal dispute resolution process available to tenants in privatized military housing,” wrote the lawmakers, who requested “further information regarding steps that the Department of Defense… [is] taking to address asbestos, lead-based paint, and mold in military housing units, establish a public complaint database for privatized military housing, and improve implementation of the formal dispute resolution process.”

“Concerns about the quality of military housing for service members—including concerns about ‘toxic mold, maintenance issues, and safety concerns’ date back decades and continue to endanger service members and their families,” the Members continued. “This past summer, a military spouse at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state reported that there was mold throughout their home and that her two children and husband developed significant health issues as a result… We are highly alarmed by the consistent failure of the Army housing office inspectors to properly assess these homes and protect service members and their families from the hazards of asbestos and lead-based paint.”

DoD has failed to properly implement reforms from the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) aimed at holding private housing accountable and military families have continued to struggle as a result. The reforms also would have permitted tenants to submit complaints, including the name of their installation and the name of the landlord responsible, significantly increasing the ability for DoD and Congress to conduct proper oversight. A 2023 Army Audit found that the Army’s inspection program for asbestos and lead-based paint had failed to adequately ensure that homes were safe for families.

Similarly, DoD has failed to ensure that military families’ homes are free of mold. The 2022 Blue Star Families Military Family Lifestyle Survey found that almost a quarter of military families had “been exposed to environmental toxins” in their homes, including one military spouse who reported in 2019 that her yearslong exposure to mold resulted in her delivering a stillborn son eight months into her pregnancy. To address these problems, DoD established a dispute resolution process, but military families continue to express concerns about the requirement that they keep the complaint process confidential, the tendency for the process to favor the private housing companies, and general confusion about how the process works.

“The Department of Defense has a long way to go to fully implement reforms and restore military families’ confidence,” he lawmakers concluded. “Military families should not be forced into a confidentiality clause if they choose to use the formal dispute resolution process to address unsafe housing conditions, and the Department needs to take steps to improve this process and protect service members and their families.”

The full text of the letter is HERE.

The daughter of a World War II veteran and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senator Murray has been a longtime advocate for increased federal investments in military housing and homelessness prevention for servicemembers and their families; she helped restart the HUD-VASH Program in 2008 and helped secure an additional $50 million for HUD-VASH vouchers in last year’s government funding bill. Last month, Murray led a letter outlining concerns about the dilapidated state of privatized housing at Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane and calling for needed repairs.

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