The Navy wants to privatize barracks
Navy installations in the Hampton Roads area are facing a maintenance backlog challenge. To help address the challenge, privatizing of barracks upkeep and maintenance is being considered. The Navy feels that with over two decades of experience with privatized family housing management, lessons learned from these experiences can be applied to privatized barracks.
From WHRO:
The Navy has at least 5,000 junior sailors living in substandard housing, according to a 2023 report from the General Accounting Office.
The military has had a troubled relationship with privatized military housing.
Family housing was privatized for more than two decades. A series of GAO reports showed problems with mold, insects and rodents, along with unresolved maintenance complaints. Problems led to tenant lawsuits against the companies throughout the military. Among the issues, the military found they had very little oversight over the private contractors.
“I think we’ve learned a lot from our private-partner ventures over the years,” Gould said. “The Navy has established quality assurance personnel that are government employees that would continue to support inspections, periodic reviews.”
The service already has authority in San Diego and Norfolk to run pilot projects for what the Navy calls private-partner ventures.
This would be the largest privatization project of on-base housing in the military, costing $200-$400 million. The plan would include taking over the barracks at all bases in Hampton Roads. Some facilities would be refurbished and new buildings would be built, Gould said.
WHRO provides additional information here.
Category: Navy
Bad crap run by DPWL. Bad crap run by a slumlord that actually cost gov’t more money.
Both still miss the target– people didn’t police their sh*t.
We were expected to keep our own barracks clean. And we did a good job or else. Barracks NCO did a daily inspection. Periodic Officer inspection etc. make these kids work. Put down their video games.
Clean and falling apart are two separate categories.
You guys like parties? Well, we’re gonna party– G.I. party!
What is the vetting process of who the private companies choose to hire and bring on base? Lots of very cheap labor has become available over the last couple of years.
I’m sure that said “Vetting”‘ will be determined by DEI and who gives kickbacks to the right people.
Is “equity,” comrade– please to not call it “racism” or “corruption,” you know!
Does the Navy not teach it’s own how to operate a mop,
bucket and wringer? How about skilled buffer ops?
Do they still make their own bunks or is that taken care of now?
These gen-Zers likely don’t know how to make a bunk, so operation of a buffer or mop is unlikely. Most are incapable of operating anything other than a cell phone or an Ipad.
Wish I could find a video of the drill instructor checking the
made bunks by dropping a dime on the top blanket.
If it didn’t bounce he would rip open the bed and make the
soldier re-make it.
Mom comes in and makes their bed for them. And maybe makes them a hot pocket too.
Don’t forget the foam swords and juice boxes
Can’t believe I overlooked that.
Here is some of the workers that will come from the private/public work arrangement.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CiVp9lWbZxs&pp=ygULb3NoYSBzaG9ydHM%3D
The guy riding the Wacker brings back memories.
We used to choke the carb to slow them down enough to
play jumping jacks. Easier to ride than a floor buffer.
Don’t forget the horde of Mexicans from out front of Home Deport the contractor swears are properly vetted for working on post– hey, how come they speak Arabic today?
Orale Akbar!
Is not the lesson learned not to give a privatized business control of housing for AD members?
My thoughts, too. It’s one thing to claim you have learned a lesson. It’s another thing to apply those learned lessons and not keep repeating the mistakes.
Government (read taxpayer) funded slumlords.
It certainly failed miserably at Camp Lejeune. I hear that those housing facilities are still massively upgefukt since that major storm like three or four years ago.
Nope.
We’ve seen over and over again The privatizing the housing does it make it any better, it just lines people’s pockets. It isn’t going to fix it damn thing.
The Navy turned it’s off-base housing management at the Subase in Groton over to private management after the majority was demolished and rebuilt in the early 2000’s. Management company then authorized the units to be rented out to civilians (supposedly only if no active duty sailors could be found to fill the opening). During my decade stationed there the waiting list for housing was never less than 6 months waiting – more likely a year+ if you qualified. Now guess who can’t find base housing in Groton? Enlisted sailors!
In 1977 the Congress found the BEQ’s (barracks, dorms, potato, potahto) at the AFB I where I was assigned were below standards. The inmates at the local penitentiary had better accommodations. The solution was about 20 or so dollars a month to each Airman in the BEQ’s in we’re sorry money.
In 1981 the USAF found some of the BEQ’s at the AB where I was assigned were below standards. The solution was each Airman in those BEQ’s was given his own room.
Yes, we had GI parties, room inspections, etc so the Airmen kept up their side of the bargain. Although, at one base, we paid a local national $10.00 a month per occupant (50 occupants = $500.00) to clean the latrines; we were still held responsible. If the 1st Sgt didn’t like the cleanliness of the latrine; we GI’s had another party.
One of the standards that was commonly unmet was, for example, – An E-1 gets X amount of square feet; no X-Y square feet. Even in the GP tents: if one had X number of Airmen, you got this number of tents; if there were NCO’s in the number, you got more tents.
In 2024, the Government still hasn’t figured out how to build to its own standards.
I think the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard someone in a leadership position say publicly was, “Don’t like your room; it was worse when I was your age!”.
So what’s the point, if you can’t meet the standard stop making the standard the selling point. Fix the BEQ’s or be honest and stop telling recruits how great the BEQ’s are. Bring back the we’re sorry money and make the Base Commanders report how they’re going to end the payments.
Usedtabe in Germany each troop was allotted something like 110 square feet. But it would be too much trouble to actually check the rooms’ size, so they just took the square footage of the floor and divided it by 110. Then they ignored the results and put 2-3 privates per room.
In Japan the buildings were manufactured by local companies. A Japanese construction company was contracted to design and build build a new BEQ. The contractor did the same thing as was done in Germany; except, the Japanese contractor counted the space in the hallway as part of the room.
Camp Fuji, Delta Company 1st Tracked Vehicle Battalion. These were the days of Old Corps, as in “You May find yourself living in a Quonset Hut…” So Delta Company moves into our allotted Quonset Huts, and the intent was that Sergeants were to get their own huts, and Corporals and below would be allocated to the few remaining huts. Maybe five Sergeants at most, but we sure were loaded for bear on Corporals and below. Corpsman tells them that is not going to work, field sanitation requires X square feet per individual, and the few Sergeants getting their own place while everyone is crammed into the remaining huts violates just about every regulation. Sergeant J. Says “I rate that space!” Hack Stone says “Great, I’ll remember that when the comm goes down on your tank.” Cooler heads prevailed, and we got enough living space. Tune in next week for the wall locker story.
The Navy doesn’t have the money to maintain the BEQs directly, but they have enough money to pay a private contractor who can do the same job for less money while making a profit from it.
How, exactly, does that work?
What amazes me is how many administrative GS positions there are at Norfolk, but apparently none of those highly paid bureaucrats can figure out how to effectively manage a few apartment buildings with any kind of effectiveness.
Really lends confidence to my impression of our current military capabilities.
Actually the whole “Administrative GS” thing I mentioned above explains a lot. Civil service workers are over paid, over benefitted, under worked and virtually impossible to fire, so when you think about it in that context, hiring some fly by night contractor to do the work on the cheap makes some kind of sense.
Except that the BEQs will still be crappy and fall apart.
We needed Stanley Roper or Schneider, they gave us Nathan Bookman.
Now, this is just a bad idea. Because MY way of handling mold and insect infestation is to use a can of Raid, and a lighter. Sometimes it works, sometimes that old insulation catches, and you get really warm walls.
Somewhere, the False Commander “Phony” Phil Monkress (CEO of All-Points Logistics) is salivating over this possible contract.
With his assortment of perverted losers with substandard discharges with “real” experience on his taxpayer-funded payroll, he has the inside track – especially if you toss in his Native American, Navy SEAL and LEO claims.
Lorin Benton looks on….
From your lips to God’s ears.
SHIT LIKE THIS goes on while the pols in DC don’t sacrifice even one single mudda-fuckin’ luxury, I say make Congressclowns live and sleep in the substandard housing provided for AD Military and see how quickly it gets fixed. How about the Quarters for Field Grade and general Officers? I kinda bet that’s nicely kept up!