Transcripts For CSPAN2 Hearing On Privatized Military Housing 20240713

Join us, mr. Brown who is behind me, and to participate in the questions and there is a formal ask unanimous consent that we allow him to participate in todays hearing after all of the subCommittee Members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Is there an objection. There being none. The nuns of kim subcommittee member is recognized at an appropriate time for fiveminute questions. And more okay with that, kemeny will come to order. Ladies and gentlemen, i call the committee to order and assent many in the Armed Services Committee Presents february of this year, the subcommittee has been conducting oversight of the privatized military housing program. We first heard about this systemic failures in the privatized military Family Housing program from a panel of courageous military spouses who provided graphic and disturbing testimony about lead and mold exposure and rodent infestations, rude and dismissive House Management in an effective oversight of the program by the services. And then we heard from the assistant military Service Secretaries im their efforts to address the failures of oversight that led to the privatized military housing crisis. In the plans of the services to continue to make improvements. It today we will hear from five of the private military Housing Partners and from their perspectives. And importantly, their plans for bringing Family Housing back to the loophole our military families deserve it i also want to make one thing clear. While we do not have all of the privatized military Housing Partners president today, that in no way means that those who are not here, car off the hook. We are watching them, we expect him to do right by the military families that they provided genesis two. Our oversight of this issue will continue. And we are watching not only does who are here but those were not. Ive heard troubling reports about michaels organization. Its the clark realty capital. In particular concerned by reports about the abuse abuse and nondisclosure agreements. For all of the Housing Partners, whether you are here today or not, im putting all of you will notice that this committee will be watching and will not tolerate in any way the abusive and problems that weve seen. It is deeply troubling. And deborah, this committee and many of our members, still are here from concerned military families who continue to struggle with getting quality resolution of the maintenance concerns. And some of the unprofessional Property Management staff. There is marked yet to be done and will continue to follow up im these issues until they are resolved as satisfaction of the military families and this committee. One of the themes that has permeated, our discussions about Privatized Housing is the issue of ineffective management particularly at the insulation loophole. The symptoms of this problem have taken many forms. Including disrespectful Customer Service personnel inexperienced maintenance teams, performing lowquality maintenance. And negative consequences consulting from wrong incentives. Initiatives are to be addressed. Daytoday management is within the purview of the private partners, im interested in hearing what you have to see about what you are doing change the culture at the insulation loophole free as military services have recommitted to oversight rules. They are working to improve the processes and refining the metrics used to measure the performance of each housing project. Im looking forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today to which the degree they were cooperating with these initiatives and the steps that they are taking to ensure that the Housing Enterprises as transparent as possible. Counterproductive practices such as tilting Maintenance Work orders before the problems are resolved, in order to artificially ulcer closures to district or asking tenants to sign nondisclosure agreements as a matter of routine join they move out of the unit by simply not acceptable. All of youve had enough time to access and screen is the problem. As we move into 2020, the focus must be in action. Not only must corrective policies and processes we must develop mechanisms sustainment positive changes to ensure our families receive high quality housing. In gaza where they live. Master Service Members and their families to sacrifice enough in service to the country. We will not accept substandard housing as well, these families deserve better and this committee will demand to get the best. Thank you so very much. You will be just as satisfied, that we are here. Thank you for having this hearing. The giver everyone in the audience showing your concern. They will hear testimony from private companies that make the privatized military Family Housing mold model work. As someone who is district to almost 40000 military members, like the chairman, i am also deeply troubled by the lack of oversight in this program and im military families deserve better. Our committee has earned significant concerns about insufficient mold remediation and terrible Customer Service and numerous numerous Mcdill Air Force base florida and not going to address them today but theres been allegations of fraud in a few extreme cases. According to a survey released earlier this year 63 percent of respondents who live in my district, said the units need better maintenance, repairs or remediation. Committee has heard our stories about mold rat infestation and poor Customer Service. The military Housing Privatization initiative began as publicprivate ventures or ppv news, 1996 as means to modernize Family Housing and improve efficiency, and will reserve accounts for future investments. Oversight of the program is challenging because each military department manages their programs differently and the prospective projects are governed by you make legal agreements. The army has 25 projects, navy and marine as 32. Further complicating the projects they are partners with limited liabilities. My hope is that this is a wakeup call. We need this model to work. But not at the expense of the military families. Every dollar wasted through this mismanagement or incompetence, diminishes the longterm viability of the reserve accounts. That are vital for future recapitalization. The house and senate both past significant Bipartisan Legislation and the defense bill this year. And i forward to enacting meaningful performs. First and foremost among these will be a tenants bill of rights. The military department have an inherent responsibility to provide oversight for these projects. A recent ig report found quote from a soup misperception that join housing was privatized, it was effectively outsourced. Leaders at many levels do not actively engage as they might have im other issues based upon misunderstanding of their authorities. Weve heard that some commanders characterize the government as the weaker 49 percent partner in these housing agreements. Applying that they have limited means to address shortcomings. Oversight is inherently governmental and its not optional. Im some installations, there is confusion regarding the identity of the insulation Housing Office in the office of the housing partner or Third Party Management company it should be Crystal Clear to a family whether they are speaking to someone representing the insulation commander, or to a rep. Of the housing partner. And we must simultaneously reform while preserving the financial putting of the right housing project. 2018 highlighted and found that the military departments in the extent to which they used to measure the future sustainment needs and funding to assess project sustainability. Im beginning to question the wisdom of the fiscal wonderful and why the recapitalization cancer paid only after the holders are paid. I look forward to hearing more from her witnesses, actions they have taken to address health and safety concerns and also Customer Service. It would also appreciate their thoughts im the program overall. Thank you it is been good to work with you im this problem we will continue to do so. And i like to welcome our witnesses. Mr. John, ceo of corbis, mr. John, president of hunted military communities, mr. Dennis hickey, ceo of lend lease, in america. Mr. Taylor president facility operations renovations construction for beatty, mr mr. Lewis, president of lincoln Family Housing. Jolynn you are a formal testimony will be put into the hearing record. In the interest of time, which are unfortunately limited today because most will occur sometime after two perhaps hopefully as late as 230. Ask you to limit your testimony and summarize the three minutes. So start. My apologies for the pronunciations. Thank you mr. Chairman, Ranking Member and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is john. I am the founder and ceo of corbis. I am here im behalf of 950 dedicated team members who support our Service Members and their families. Many of our employees are veterans, or discusses of active duty military members. Talented people are generally committed to supporting those who protect and defend our nation. It is my honor to serve in this capacity. Join i was first introduced to massive challenge facing the department of defense with a struggling housing. I was moved by how poorly we were caring for military. India and he was committed a real longterm solution. With our experience, and believed we were wellsuited to help. Join i founded our company some 20 years ago, we set out to create something that convicts the housing challenges and facing our military. After 911, a very important job became a mutation. One is less and hell never work im. No uncertain terms, i apologize for the issues and some of the residents were dealing with. I said we would do whatever it takes to do right by all of her residence. Today one tell you, a few of the things weve done since i apologize nearly ten months ago. Sincerely and torn 1900 weve been making changes and a concerted effort to get back to the Gold Standard. It will be known join we have deployed Service Members were able to speak to their families about their daily lives, was having a school, not about the problems they are experiencing within the housing. Will know that weve achieved the Gold Standard join our residents talk about corbis and the things that they are doing at events, strong sense of community and a team that has helped create a better leaving environment. With that in mind, we neighbored the added neighborhood staff, we moved our call centers back onto the installations so that the residents talk somebody right down the street as opposed to a central call station. Once the corneas station so that residents can use their smart phone or laptop to Place Service calls track progress and let us know if he got the job done right. Reestablish or incident advocate to work for those families with more challenging issues and from the early days of the pa program, is well understood that to give our servicemembers the homes they deserve, the program need it to operate in a consistent state of development, construction and financing. Solving the housing challenges is always been based im the regular investment homes building new homes will maintaining homes both new and old. An investment in these homes is an investment in the service member. That is why we have injected new her name into the program through 25 million of practic capital tran19 and hundred 50 million for 2024 also putting close to 200 million worth from our partnership preserves. To finance a 7 million at no cost to the government. These business will be used to place for completely of great some the most challenging out maintain. More than 16000 homes were brought up to a Higher Energy center like new heating, air conditioning systems, and give residents a better Home Experience while setting the program nearly 300 million over the course of the next 30 years. And to someone is been in the program for nearly 20 years, i can see from personal express that the homes that we inherited, or in terrible and in many cases uninhabitable. Through the program, we were able to upgrade or replace thousands of older homes in the early years. However, to date, 46 percent of our homes and military portfolio were built before 1980 and some as old as 1870. As we looked into the future, theres a lot to be encouraged about in some real challenges as well. The priority is to deliver both gendered Resident Service and older homes that cost more each year to maintain, and drive constant investment in new homes and renovations. Orpheus will continue to work tirelessly for our families and keep innovating and finding new answers to get servicemembers homes they deserve. We are proud to serve our military women and men as we believe there is no higher calling in our industry. I say you for this time and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is john hale and i am president of hunt military communities. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. And, we are just to build Quality Community for americas heroes. We take that responsibility very seriously. During the Senate Hearings in february, it became obvious to us that the work families leaving in our homes whose voices were not being heard. Lesser trust and were sorry or do we want to get right. Weve heard her residence lawn care and we are singularly focused im refilling our trust in us in improving their leaving experience. Other the past, weve been working diligently im the front. First, we recognize the Quality Homes Resident Services depends upon opening regular communications with the residents. We need to hear from all of our military families in order to address their issues. We mayday number of improvements to make it easier for residents to communicate with us. In addition, we understand that maintenance is the critical part of providing Quality Homes. In early share, it became clear to us that we had some substantial room for improvement. All maintenance issues inevitably arise, our goal is to provide professional and transparent and timely service. In the last year, weve enhanced maintenance processes, and keep positions and improve training. Finally, we are actively supporting reforms to ensure the longterm success of the program. We are by no means perfect, and there have been times where performances have fallen short of our residences into patients. We are committed to taking the necessary actions to rebuild trust between her residence. With a progress of the past year that her work is far from done. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today i look forward to hearing your questions here you thousand and three questions. Thank you. My name is dennis hickey, chief executive of lenox america. Is the partner of the departme department. Put your microphone . Sorry. Proud partner of the department of defense and we have the privilege of overseeing 40000 homes that contain over a hundred and 3000 people who call it their home. Mr. Chairman, issues being discussed are here are critical for me personally. No family, much less military family should be subjected to leaving in standards or substandard Housing Conditions. We apologize for anything that weve because in this instance. We are proud of the work that we do to care for military families however we realize we have more work to do and continually improve. As an example, join we purchased over 400,000 Service Hours we processed approximately 25000 Service Orders across homes. 97 percent of these orders were successfully done im time and function. We say this is the good result and we are proud of that. However, it does mean that 3 percent, or not effectively process im time. And that is the big issue. So mr. Chairman and members of the committee, that 3 percent is my focus. What can we do to get that number down. Equity air of these families more quickly and more effectively than we currently are. In order to improve our performance we recently taken the following steps. Her seafoam significantly increased focus im Customer Service. Weve added new staff and suppliers and new contractors and instituted new training modules to train our staff. For example weve instituted the Maintenance Academy to order. Smart phone apps as well. This contains a volume of information easily accessible to residents, including the ability for them to initiate and track service requests. Use of this app has doubled in the last six months across our communities. Their live weve introduced the mold inhibiting protocols for these include new mold techniques enhance filter protection seven was ventilation systems and other initiatives. We are continuing to invest in technology to improve all aspects of our business. Modules and of improved sorceress, greater analytics and the adoption of Additional Technology that better uses predicting Maintenance Technology across new homes being built. Anna mr. Chairman i am particularly proud of the work weve done in establishing a resident Advisory Board in our communities. Our objective is to correct an transference environment where residents will collaborate with us in order to correct an active and engaged community. We look to sectors for inspiration and identify the school and vga model as a benchmark for will know that we see it strong pta from uc is possible. Similarly our resident Advisory Boards are designed to allow residents to regularly engage bilingually in the local command to Work Together to ensure housing issues and qualityoflife concerns and best practices shared. Our goal is to have one neighborhood rep. To have 400 homes these representatives become members of the Advisory Board. In addition, our director and rep. Are members of this board. We believe this initiative is already having great impact. This is evident by the correspondence i received last night from the states military. Which was founded by the spouses who came before this committee this year. They asked me to read this stigma. Quote join submitting they have embraced some of their toughest issues by sitting down and building relationships. They have benefited the companies the residents im the micro and macro loophole. They have leveraging the best staff to help build best practice in observer military families. Tilting gaps and changing cultures at the local and corporal at numbers, they been able to build effective relationships with their spouse and kept offices and family advocates and most importantly the residence to improve program work in its infancy. Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the work this committee is done to find sensible solutions to improve the quality of homes for military housing. We remain committed to being part of the solution. I look forward to questions. Thank you. Mr. Taylor. Good afternoon. Monday mr. Taylor rick taylor, president facility operations renovations and construction for belton communities. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. We take the responsibility of surfing those who serve our country very seriously. Weve heard your concerns and those of our residents, loud and clear. Im behalf of the community semi would like to apologize for having falling short of the high standards are military families deserve. We are working hard to book rebuild the trust. This is truly been a humbling experience. We learned a lot, we realized we need it to transform many of the ways in which we do business in order to improve our residents daily leaving experiences. That transformation is underway today. I would like to highlight three of our transformation efforts with you now. First, we have reorganized, this includes my appointment as president for facility operations renovations and construction. This means there is now a president in charge of and responsible for all military housing maintenance activities. This individual will be responsible for management programs across the military housing. Second period we are transforming our service. We have delivered live mandatory conduct to Business Integrity and ethics. Weve also delivered and enhance Customer Service to our employees to emphasize our commitment to best practices and high standards. We recently appointed a new Vice President training and 100 new professionals to housing staff. And we are empowering our residents for more transparency and control over their work. Third, we are improving our mandatory environmental management. With increased monitoring of all homes, particular mold and moisture issues. We have supplemented with third Party Specialist teemed with National Services and maintenance companies. Weve hired regional specialists advisor teams. And manage that communications with our residents. I also want to make myself clear our communities takes the issue of fraud very seriously. Including the allegations of fraud towards our workers. Simultaneously we have instructed our own counsel in the leading investigation across our entire staff. In turn it is engage Price Waterhouse coopers leading extensive review of the work for submission. Summarize, over the last nine months we have made efforts to transform and strengthen our management structure. We address our customers concerns. Going forward i remain encouraged and 1r committed to this program. I want members of congress and staff. We support these reforms that will strengthen the program. For example we wholeheartedly support the bill of rights and a uniform old policy, uniform resident placement policy, and standardized incentive metrics. These are responsible and will focus everyone. The reforms will minimize ambiguity clarify responsibilities, allow everybodys voice to be heard. I support these efforts, and it will improve because of them. Our customers are the very best. We are determined to deliver to them. Thank you for your time and i look forward to your questions sharon member, Ranking Members on behalf of the military housing thank you for the opportunity to testify before your subcommittee today my name is gerald bliss and im the president. Our Company Welcomes a subcommittees oversight on military Housing Privatization. We hope you share our view that despite these setbacks, image pi is a valuable program to improve quality over military housing in the last century. We also welcome the oversight on our ability to deliver highquality housing and Property Management they deserve. Over the past year our company has listen carefully to concern some families have talked about their housing. More than 1200 police have people serving in the military wake up families with honor and integrity. But its obvious that we have come shortly some of our families. As president of the organization i apologize to her military families when we dont live up to the expectations. In 2017 working with military families we undertook a holistic review of policies and procedures on how we can improve. We identified and developed several reforms to address to mangels. First with to improve the quality of our homes and services. Second goal was to make reforms for trust, transparency and dialogue with our residents. Many of those reforms have been implemented lummi list a few of these for you. First we have worked with the military Family Organization to identify, an advocate in that dozen of our communities of moran the pipeline. These advocates advertised each problem and try to work with the families and resolve it. Second are on the ground Property Management and personnels goal is actively to knock on doors even when theres no work going on just to check in with the residence to check in and see theres any issues with the home we need to address. An address to an addition to addressing these homes, it builds a culture of trust. Third we have been responsive to changes in communication tools. We have improved our phone app that allows residents to submit. We still use our call center in san diego for those who would rather call in. Weve worked with her Service Branch partners with Public Health and getting involved with environmental hazards more quickly. Armynavy specialist, who helped both of our us and our families when a family should be moved if an operation is being performed. These are just a few of the reforms if undertaken in the process of the reforms which we believe are consistent with several provisions. As your subcommittees look at how lmh and others of these are performing. I look forward to working with you and or dod partners to explore new and creative ways to improve our militaries families experience our housing. We understand the issues are not just about fixing drywall, but repairing a culture of trust with our residents. A culture that recognizes the dignity of their service to our nation. I look forward to your questions and more importantly to work with you to address the concerns of the military families. For our Committee Members and our gas, we are scheduled votes probably in about 15 minutes for now. So im going to pass on my questions and turned to mr. Lamborn and take as many of our colleagues as possible. Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, mr. Chairman for sharing. My first question or two i would just like to go down the line and have a yes or no answer for the sake of time. From your perspective commandeer companies have a 51 controlling position in the privatized military housing agreements . Surf we just goad down the line. No. The answer varies from property to property. So its not as simple yes or no. The structure does not look like it is that way. No, sir we do not. As mr. Hickey said it may say that, but the operating agreements dont call for that sort of control. And you agree that the government and the middle military have a legitimate over Side Committee for the ppp initiatives. Absently s. Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. So im sure some Great Questions about specific remediation. Progress or lack of progress that youre making. But let me jump into the financial side of things. Should congress intercede and require that we restructure the waterfall agreements so the results would be that we investment accounts have to be fully paid up before everyone else gets paid . That is something that would be a radical departure, but its the kind of reform that we may have to look at, any thoughts on that you like to offer . Representative i think that as the program is currently structured, it was set up, and is set up so that we can continue to advance investments and have continuous investments, if allowed to do so. Working with our dod partners and support from congress, i think we can get there without going have to go through tremendously radical changes. I do believe though that adjustment in the waterfall to make sure that investment is consistent would be of benefit. Any other thoughts or comments thank you. Mr. Taylor, i think its worthwhile to consider everything should be on the table for consideration. But i would say that we have lending agreements that would have to be maintained such that services are paid where its currently prescribed in the waterfall. So that being said, if we didnt disrupt that, then i think we should be having that conversation about figuring out a better way to have long stir longterm stability. Any thoughts on that . Congressman i support that position i think at the end its just to make sure theres sufficient capital to undertake development. Theres a variety of solutions to do that. I think in the interest of bondholders and gate holders need to be in mine. So be a complex arrangement to undertake. And last for the sake of time, a finish with this. Can someone comments on how we could do here in congress to make your job easier so that the finances work better, said that the investments can be made to keep properties as high quality condition as possible . So is there something, like the scoring, that omb calls for that we should reexamine . s reserve representative i think that if we went back to the premise on the program, or the beginning of the program, was based on what was known as the reins member will memo from omb that was rescinded over time. So we started out with the right program and the right investment philosophy, and the right investment pieces. But change the game midstream. So if we just went back to that original scoring methodology, that would continue to allow us to add additional, which was always the premise, additional Funding Sources gonna forward going basis. So we went back to the original rules, i think lewd be able to solve many of the investment challenges. Anyone else on that. Congressman i agree on that and the scoring process could be reviewed, at the end of the day were looking for additional sources of funding. If we we can be proactive across the structures. The other issue around the ah process, and i think that process is set annually. And when it goes up or down, regarding where it sits within relative outside the base accommodation, i think probably the optics about how that is determined is something that is very possible because that is the Revenue Source off the bases in its entirety sir. So maybe some transparency around the would be beneficial. Yes i just want to add i also would say that Anything Congress could do to create flexibility on financing that we could use private sector tools without having scoring issues. Thank you for your input mr. Chairman i yield back. Thank you mr. Lambert. I assume votes will be in shortly, im told we are expected to be off the floor and back here around 230. So we will break and without objection we will break and return. Thank you, mr. Chairman and i want to thank the entire committee on what weve done on this incredibly critical issue. In a bipartisan way, and i think the beginning of the work that weve done for this year is critically important. But i want to dig in a little bit more into the issues that were talking about. And what this means for our military families. Because the first time i heard about these issues was at a town hall in january. And the mother showed up and brought pictures of the housing that they were living in. She told me about the conditions and the Health Impact their family was handling at the air force base. I was angry and frustrated and hoping it was a limited problem. But sadly found out that it was not. And this is why we are here today. Because the issues that have already been laid out, the infestations are rampant across the board. Its one of those things it is so outrageous to me that were not taking care of our Service Members and their families. And the way that they deserve because these people putting their lives on the line. And you have responsibly for 55 facilities through 26 bates states. Hundred and 50,000 people, that is not an insignificant impact. And i am incredibly disappointed that you have failed to live up to your responsibility for taking care of the people that are living in these houses. It is cheating our military families and our taxpayers, and ive seen it firsthand. My staff and the secretary of the air force were just out at tinker again, there are ongoing problems. And i wish that i could say that things were all better, but theyre not. Because, well theres been some progress but it seems like every other week there something else. Toxic mold, safety hazards, and just the week before last, november 20, get another report that maintenance records were being falsified to get Balfour Beatty payments. These payments they werent invited to. This is not an isolated incident theres already 65 documented falsified maintenance records. According to the severity when he threw poor, employees had systematically doctored records, not just at Tinker Air Force base but to other bases. This is a systemic problem and it had theres a lot of work that needs to be done to fix it. The image behind me as an image of one of the homes it was brought to me by the families living at Tinker Air Force base. So mr. Taylor, my question to you is even if times have improved, is this someplace you would want to live or allow your family to live . Congressman that picture is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable. Thank you i appreciate that. To me this is unconscionable and we need to fix this. In is going to require a lot of effort its going to require getting down to the heart of the problem, not just putting bandaids and painting over things and patching walls, which may make it look good for a few moments. But its basically like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. And thats a people have been living with in far too many places. We have to get to the heart of this issue. Ice just spoke to the secretary of the air force today and what we talked about was the need to get down, and this goes for everybody. Weve got to get down to the heart of this issue. You gotta stop putting bandaids on gaping wounds. We have to identify and get down to the core of the issue. So my next question to you is will you commit to making whatever investments that are necessary to put in place longterm solutions. Solutions of Culture Solutions of reorganization, and if it needs to be tearing down properties and starting over, to get to the heart of these issues so that we are doing right by our military members and their families. s. Congressman i alluded to it in my opening remarks weve made significant changes in the way we are conducting our business. Putting clear line of sight for the technical issues, these fall in that area. A clear line of sight all the way to the top of the organization and that rests on my shoulders. So i am committed, and i shall be held accountable for the changes that we need to make. I will be holding you accountable to that instance ill have a few seconds left, i also want to followup with one final question. From the documents ive seen, it appears that your Company Earns about 4. 3 million in performance bonuses each year end on these properties. Over these years, that is tens of millions of dollars in performance bonuses that were paid out well documented evidence that Balfour Beatty and it doesnt matter if it is an employee down the line this company was falsifying maintenance records. Tens of millions of dollars. What i want to know is that will you commit to taking every single penny at least of this money that was paid based on falsified maintenance records to invest that in fixing the problems that all these Housing Units have. Congressman woman as i mentioned, those allegations are quite shocking to us. We are undertaking a thorough review, i mentioned weve invested with outside counsel to investigate that. The department of justice is undertaking the investigation into those very same issues. We have committed to providing the results of our findings to the d. O. J. In the event that we are found to have falsified records, and we are absently committed to refunding any Incentive Fees received back to those projects. And further, in the event that any of our individuals are found to be at fault, not complying with our code of conduct, which we tame take extremely seriously to the extent that we find anyone who strayed from her conduct, we will take up propria disciplinary action. Mr. Taylor we are over time, i just think that its important for us to say we are going to continue to work on this. But the confidence that our communities have, and that our Service Members have in their ability to trust their families to your care, collective care, has been seriously eroded and its going to take a lot of work, transparency, and attrition to get to the root of this. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, in february we had a roundtable with the spouses and military members affected by these housing issues. And i want to tell you that i found those spouses those soldiers who were there primarily spouses to be extremely professional and incredible. And i was a little taken back at a couple of things. One of the things i was taken aback the base commanders of the dod took this issue serious enough. I think where we had good commanders it was taken serious and in other areas may be poor based command allowed part of these things to happen. But the primary issue that got my attention was the complexity of the landlordtenant contract written by lawyers of extremely large corporations that you represent. That is then handed to a soldier who may be, quite honestly just out of high school in many cases. And so when you hand the Service Members a contract. Theres provisions in these contracts and the mediation contracts, that are intentionally designed, and have the financial intimidation of our Service Members and their families that say that if they take you to mediation, if thats their only course of action where they can resolve the issue, and they dont win, then they have to pay your legal fees. So my question is this. Are these provisions still in your contracts . Lets just go down the line. To the best of my knowledge congressman, we have been adapting the provisions to not have any forms of that type of language. Languages of intimidation or languages that would provide remuneration back to us as a company if a suit was filed or filed forcefully. Yes or no. All of our loose forms are under review and affect the industry is working on a common lease form. That is not a yes or no so i will assume that you still have the intimidation commissions. Im not aware of that they exist, but i can tell you weve never pursued recovery of these from residents. s they do still exist but we are in the process of working of the cyst services with approval to remove them. Thank you i think we have our land owners, our soldiers bill of rights, housing bill of rights, i think those provisions will be struck. That is unacceptable to me to ask an 18yearold soldier straight out of high school to sign a contract to make them responsible for legal fees of a multimillion dollar corporation. With that mr. Chamber id like to yield the provisions of my time to north carroll mine im sorry new york. Gentlemen thank you for being here today. Earlier this year we heard from services and military family members. And it was really stunning to hear about the challenges that these military families have faced. I the honor of representing fort drum, home of the tenth mountain division, the most deployed unit in the army since 911. Two these are families who have faced multiple, multiple employments to our rack afghanistan, around the world. It is extremely important to me that they not have the stress that their family members face at home because of housing issues. So mr. Hickey, as you know ben lease is the primary private partner at fort drum and i want to ask you for the record, because this gets to this feeling that people dont have a voice and they dont have adequate Response Time when there are complaints. If a military tennant has a complaint or concern, how can they absolutely count on lindleys to address this concern in a timely and professional and adequate manner. And most recently snow removal has come up in the north country. I know some of you dont face that, but that is a significant concern and that came up at a town hall recently. Thank you for the question. We operate in a structure with very clear protocol of responding to inquiries that gives references they can come straight to our project director. They can come tors set Customer Service they can come through our resident apps. We monitor all the request digitally through a system, so its not a manual process we can track anything thats not monitored. So we have a management regime looking at the things that are not addressed and appropriate manner. I think in addition, the residents on the Advisory Board that weve actually put in place which will be rolling out onto fort drum very soon, is the other form for which residents can get voices and access with those community represent in some small areas and making sure there are several opportunities for them to get heard, and get opportunities to voice their concerns or ideas proactively. Thank you. All turned to ms. Houlihan. Thank you chairman general for joining me today. As the way of background my thirdgeneration background. My mom was a resident of military housing and so are her six brothers and sisters. I was a resident of meltzer housing as well as my brother and i have for activeduty cousins right now. We represent the army, we represent the army, represent the agencies. The Housing Conditions i lived in looks a lot like this. As an educator and a person who lived in housing like this i can say that i really work for the children. I worry for the children who are exposed to lead and are exposed to a mold. And im worried what im hearing is that people are not using the word mold because it would create problems. Its creating, your organizations are creating the opportunity to kind of hide things. So the first thing i want to ask, because of time, for the record. Well be able to submit your policies on lead and mold for remediation so we can understand what they are . And what kind of, what do you do in your timelines of when you remediate those. And also what you do to make sure people, you talk a lot about displacement, what happens when theyre displaced . And also for the record again, what compensation do families have when their home goods are destroyed having had that experience as a child i understand that. So that i would like to have for the record. The other thing i like to understand, and may be individually in the case where there is a child who has been affected by this, who will permanently be disabled because of this, what responsibility do you all have, or do you plan for with your forprofit businesses to make sure that those children and those families are being taken care of . Or do you expect that the government will do that for you . In our case we work directly when an instance like this comes up. We work directly with the medical community on the installation, with the Garrison Commander and we tried to provide and define where the problem really is. We have had instances where we believed it was the home causing it and it turned out it was the lead in the munitions plants the soldier was actually working in. Lets assume its something thats identified in the housing issue that happened in the past. What is the process . If we find out is determined that the home is in fact the cause of the illness, then we will support that child or its medical costs. And mr. Ale,. Were obviously supportive of the process of determination and through resolution and so forth if there is fault thats determined, we will certainly work with whatever the termination is. I will provide you with all that protocol comments very clearly outlined we have a 24 Response Time just to let you know that if anything happens that 24 hours as long as the residents feel uncomfortable we will relocate them immediately and so forth. So there is a regime about how we deal with mold and leadbased paint which im happy to share with you. If its found out that we are the cause of any medical condition will absolutely to financially compensate any structure that is appropriate. Congresswoman i would agree with the other gentlemen if we are found to be at fault we are complicit. And youre planning for that because youve been at this for a few decorates and therell be decades of kids who are now presumably grown who may have those problems. Those can be a chevy did back to that. Of its contribute back to our conduct, yes, maam. Thank you. Congresswoman we will also provide you the protocol and whatnot. About the answer about medical, if we are proved to be at fault that will work with the family and medical define whats the best resolution to solve that issue. Thank you and with the last 45 seconds of my time i would just like to know, ive heard a lot go down the line yes yes no no, i have having been a former entrepreneur and business person. I think the best practices are the best. Do you have a group that you share your best practices with across your organization so that each one of your standards is similar of the same and that your sharing with someone the same . You said you have a napkin other people use that. You said you have a roundtable java best practice round table . Yes representative we actually formed a military Housing Association specifically to do that. As an outcome of challenges weve had, we realize we do share individual best practices, but we didnt share, we werent sharing is the industry. So were starting to do that on a much grander scale and i think its starting to provide some benefit that you will be seeing or have been seeing this far. And i know i ran out of time and want to give a videos their time so i would just love to hear if you guys to get together on adding it back to us. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you mr. Wilson. Thank you, mr. Chairman h of you being here today. Mr. Taylor, im really grateful for the leadership at fort jackson commit commander and Brigadier General biegel has on the town hall to address the issues of housing. Complaints were raised about the broken sidewalks, long lines, for the completion of work orders, shoddy work of pears and noshows by the mena staff. What have you done to correct these deficiencies . Is there a residency Advisory Board established . Is there a project manager that you can report to on a 24 basis . Thank you meant congressman. Yeah i think universally across all of our portfolio we are Getting Better at forming resident groups that we can meet with. And we do that in concert with our military partners at the individual installations as well. Town halls that are seeing an increase of frequencies in town halls and we participate alongside her military partners. Those are great ways first get that information to understand what concerns our residents are facing. In terms of processes, changes that were undertaking. As i indicated in my opening remarks, we certainly recognize that we could do better in many locations. And so weve address that through a number of staffing level increases. Looking at the policies and procedures that we do have in place and where we saw they were deficient, were addressing those. So its not as simple as addressing one area, its more broad problem. We are taking on a number of different areas to improve. But a lot of that is through process procedure, make sure we have appropriateness. Is there a hotline where resident could report an issue . Yes, sir we have an 800 tollfree line that any resident, employees, anybody can call to let us know at the corporate level any issues that theyre facing that arent being addressed locally. Thank you and mr. Anil is a Hunt Military Community but there is confusion on the structure of your deal military. I understand its a 50 year deal, the agreements are not contracts, and youre considered a partner not a contractor. Can you explain this and how the system works . All of the llcs that we have our 50 or ground leases owned by the government. And the partnership element is these are meant to be true Publicprivate Partnerships. With the air force which is what that is, the air force is not a legal member of the llc like the navy or the army are in their projects. But the airport does have an investment in direct loans. They have a financial interest in the project and so there is a partnership. And of course none of these can conceded without a partnership. A partnership is mutual accountability and orcs for a wealthy air force. Thank you and i yield my time. Thank you just a followup, one of the aspects in the nda that we focused on is the important for a common tennant bill of rights. And i want to hear from each of you, and ill start with you mre importance of your answer to my district. What rights are you proactively insuring that are afforded to our military families who are leasing your properties . And how do you measure that success . Thank you congresswoman, the question we are working diligently with the services on a common bill of rights. We participated and put forward our suggestions and thats well documented and i think run away to a solution. But putting the ability for residents to receive refunds if they are in a situation where they are in a house that is not been maintained properly, they can get refunded rent. Putting in plain English Version contracts to actually terminate contracts if theres something wrong with the house. Giving more flexibility back to our residents is something weve been focused on. Certain i know you have talked of that to the services but have you solicited feedback from military families for suggestions for for the bill of rights. Yes we have, yes we have. We have been Holding Town Halls all across our bases including fort drum and getting that feedback to see what they would like to see. So it has been a collaborative approach. And the rest ill take my answers for the record because my time is expired. Thank you yes. Thank you chairman and thank you all for coming i appreciate you being here and taking the time to be with us today. My district is in new mexico, the first Congressional District i havent air force base and we have 365 days of sun. Year in the climate is extremely dry. And yet we have still had reports of mold there. For whatever reason it sounds kind of strange, but nonetheless that is one of the issues that my constituents have reported to me. I am a daughter of a 30 year career marine so i grew up in military housing, all along Southern California and in virginia both. And so im luckily, i have nothing but good memories of those times unlike many of the families who are unfortunately do not share that same will not save the same memories that i do. So i do hear some good things from my district. I hear the new maintenance comment cards include information on them about whos coming into their homes the quality of their parikh has improved. Theres better communication, and thats apsley vital. And im glad to hear hunt is taking these steps. Also i hear about the fall festival and other family activities, and those are all good things. Unfortunately substantial changes and challenges remain. Families continue to remain inconsistent treatment and information from hunt staff. So my first question is for you mr. L, can you please share what steps your company has taken to improve standardized Customer Service . Yes representative, the lack of consistency is something were extremely focused on. All across our portfolio. And its one of the reasons we are focused on promoting standardization ill cross not just our portfolio but they and industry so we look at things like variances in response and completion standards, not just property but across the industry. We are very much in favor of doing that in fact weve already done that and our own portfolios establishing a hunt standard for standards consistency and so our residents should start seeing that. In terms of our Environmental Concerns, Environmental Concerns are on the rise in last couple of years weve seen mold in ways to an extent weve never seen in a long, long time. Primarily caused by some extreme climatic issues that havent historically been seen. By dont think thats in a change in the future. So are beefing up our environmental expertise on site. At the corporate level were beefing up our environmental training first maintenance texts. We are adding maintenance texts and other professionals to maintain work completion. We have made a great deal of progress in filling all of those positions. And of course increase trainee across all of our people. Thank you thank you. Id like to turn to the issue of mold and thank you for raising that yourself. Continues to be a major challenge and weve heard that from my colleagues. Many families want to have licenses and thirdparty Services Conduct testing in their homes. Some have been told that hunts and other Housing Companies wont accept these results. Or that thirdparty experts will not be permitted to enter the home. Mr. L what is hunch policy on mold testing by license thirdparty experts . We tend to file the epa guidelines related to testing and the apa tends to advised against testing because they find it to be inconclusive. And examples from elsewhere in our portfolio is weve had tests on houses that dont readily apparently have mold that the test comebacks high. On the other hand weve been in houses where were theres obvious mold all over a wall in the test comes back that there is no mold in the house. So he found that its difficult to find a reliable test. Would you allowed families to seek the Second Opinion by experts . We support anything our residents choose to pursue for those purposes. Again, we found that testing is unreliable because it can go either way. It could be a false positive or false negative. Thank you. How much time do i have . I yield. Thank you. Thank you, one of the aspects of this crisis that i think is really important is prevention and mitigation paired and it fort drum we have a relatively young population. Young soldiers, young military families. Often times the first time they are responsible for their home that theyre living in. How are you, mr. Hickey, investing and sort of providing educational for those young family members and young Service Members to know to contact you before something gets to a crisis level that weve seen in some of these photos . Thank you congresswoman. We actually share your concern. Many times they are 18 or 19yearold people who have just used out of home and have to maintain a house and think about issues of avoiding damp conditions in your house. At every moving in time, when a person moves into a residence we take a personal tour of the house with them, we explained some of the issues. They explain how things work in the property. We explain some the maintenance obligations and how they go about looking for things that are problematic. We also do a 30 day and a 90 day checkin to make sure their housing is going well. We see how they are doing if they want any help in terms of looking after their home, we also do a yearly inspection on all the properties. So in all those times we seize the opportunity to help train them, or help educate them and give them visibility as to what they could do better. And we also tell them the minute they have a concern to bring us straight away and will come out and talk to them. So theres a little bit of education, we could do more evident we like to do more of it. But its also trading them to help themselves of the same time. So thats what we do, and we continue to invest in that. Thank you yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman i think the committee and subcommittees to participate todays hearing. Let me just start by saying i support the military Housing Privatization initiative. I support things like enhanced use lease on military installation. I select Publicprivate Partnerships. Marilyn weve done a lot of great things. But i support them only when we can ensure that we deliver quality, safety, reliable value products and services to the public. What the public demands and what they deserve. And in this case, we talk about privatizing military housing, the public is that varied cherished public, our military families. And here we fell short. My concern is this. I get that circumstances may have changed over the decade or so since we started the program to where we are today. I hear about the drawdown. I hear about the reductions of the bh rates and how that put pressure on the ability to deliver quality. But what concerns me is that it took the courage of military spouses to come to congress. The pentagon didnt come to congress and say we have a problem. You didnt come to congress and say we have a problem, the framework, the model, before mueller we base the agreement on years ago doesnt work because of the changed environment. Instead military families got squeezed. It was military spouses who stepped up. That is a shame on you, it is a shame on the pentagon and weve got to fix it. In february 2019 you stated you hired a world renowned specialist so that we are living up to the Gold Standard yet you are saying, quote, it will take time to get back to the Gold Standard of communication and service and enjoyed in early years of our partnership. Why have you not returned to the Gold Standard you promised and more portly our Service Members. Why is your position changed . Our position has not changed. We endeavor to return to the Gold Standard. The Gold Standard will be when one of the tenets we found that our business on, back from four deployments and talk to his family or her family about what is happening in their lives and not deal with homeowner or home issues. We are getting back to that standard. I dont want to accept the fact that we got there because you mentioned in your testimony townhall and greater communication with Service Members is a big part of it and one servicemember has been denied access where those communications, are you familiar with that . Im not really with that. Please know your eyes yourself with that so we say when servicemembers are formal and Informal Communications with you that that means all Service Members. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter i have sent to the inflation commander at fort mead asking the Garrison Commander to step up his oversight at fort mead because i really believe you are not making forward progress as you committed earlier this year. Can we enter this into the record . Without objection. Several Service Members, they experienced direct retaliation from your company to resolve issues with their homes. These behaviors included seen gestures, driveby harassment, deny access to the resident Response Group and refusal to address maintenance issues. Whether you are or not, do you condone this behavior and what actions will you take to ensure harassment ceases . We take any form of retaliation or harassment seriously and do not condone the behavior. Im not aware of specific cases where that has taken place but i will look into it immediately and report back to you. These are serious allegations was with terry families protecting their own rights, do not warrant retaliatory measures. With that i yield back. Thank you, miss escobar. Thank you. Im grateful for this hearing, im grateful to the panelists. Appreciate your presence here. I recognize and thank military families who expressed so much courage in the face of potential retaliation and after years of frustration and incredible difficulty thanks for being here. Im very grateful for your strength and courage. The roundtable we have with military families, not everyone but most of you, those conversations at the roundtable were shocking, heartbreaking, difficult to hear and to be honest in fury a. I am very grateful that there has been a spotlight placed on all of this and a demonstrated desire to preserve the Publicprivate Partnership but to improve it in order to sustain it and to continue it. Mister taylor, we had a conversation about all of this but as i mentioned in my office what was particularly troubling on top of the many issues families brought forward, issues that literally meant that peoples lives were upended, that health was put at risk, children were put at risk, and the fraud allegations, we talked about everything you are doing, not just remedy but to investigate and i appreciate the investigation. I ask you the same thing i asked you in my office and this is about accountability because too often accountability is swept under the rug or lowerlevel employees are sometimes fired but the high paid highlevel who should have known and should have created a culture of accountability remain untouched. I will ask in this hearing what i asked privately. I would like to know the number of dismissals that have occurred as a result of the fraud allegation. Any other disciplinary actions that have been taken. How will leadership, how far up the chain will accountability go . How will leadership be held accountable. If you could answer those questions im not asking for names of folks or asking you to disclose anything that is in personnel files. This is important to understand in terms of accountability for me, the General Information please. Thank you, congresswoman and i recall the conversation and it gave me an opportunity to interrogate our information so i would be prepared to respond. I will say this and repeat it in a remark i made earlier. We are all accountable to provide the service we are entrusted to provide, doesnt matter where we sit in the organization. Since the allegations of fraud were levied earlier this year i went back and asked staff to look at how many folks on our staff were let go because they didnt comply with our policies, procedures, code of conduct because that is at the part of our organization. If we dont have Staff Members that are willing to follow those policies and procedures that is an obvious weakness in any organization and since the beginning of this year we had 17 instances where we let people go because they were not complying with the standards we set for our employees. Where they fit in the organization without specific positions there were managers that were let go at project sites. I will tell you to reiterate a comment i made earlier regardless what the investigation reveals, if it identifies wrongdoing by any member of the staff it doesnt matter about the top of the organization, the middle of the organization or wherever it sits rest assured we will take the appropriate action to make sure those folks are no longer employed by our company. I am just about out of time but i will say to all of you it will be very important that the improvements you have made the report back to us we need to know the number of calls, the number of people using the apps etc. We need to see certain reporting back complete transparency because that is the only way we can hold you all accountable as well as hold ourselves accountable. I yield back. Votes have been called. I will wrap it up with a couple comments. I have noticed the quality questions from both sides. This hearing is one of the series. And im sure members of this committee are members of the house of representatives, we will stay on this end the committee will certainly during my chairmanship and somebody else has it, be aware. For those who are not part of the system they will be held accountable along the lines of questions asked by the committee. Several things needs to be noted. We knew at the outset that part of the problem is base commanders did not take responsibility. That is changing, the pentagon is well aware of it from previous secretary all the way down the line and we will see to it the accountability remains in military and base commanders. There will be a bill of rights, it is in near final form. Im told the pentagon is awaiting passage of the nba and the final version of it which may have some impact on the bill of rights itself but it will be forthcoming and deal with many of the issues occurring today. The question of the leased contracts themselves, we will push leases across the military reach the highest standard of any state lease, homeowners and tenants laws which im told might be massachusetts but i claim california. If any members think there Senate Rights are better in North Carolina bring it forward and we will see but in any case we will try to achieve consistent with multiplicity of contracts that exist between military and private housing providers, make sure they protect the tenants so tenants will be in the firstorder. Questions about metrics how do we observe quality or lack thereof across the whole range of issues, those metrics are under review and i would ask any member that has ideas of what should be in those metrics to bring it to us and drive that forward. Finally with regard to the role of tenants in the communities themselves, and that they be formed in the community, the renters, that they can participate. The word pta was used but it certainly speaks to the involvement of the families working together to ensure the issues are fully dealt with at the base level and in necessary here in congress. That covers many of the issues. Any further thoughts . This meeting is adjourned and we are coming back. May be in four months we will be back in early spring for a review of where we are and ask for services as well as the owners about privatizing housing. We are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] live friday on the cspan networks the house returns for a resolution regarding the israelipalestinian conflict and a bill on Voting Rights on cspan. At 5 30 president ial candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks to students in iowa. The Cato Institute hosted surveillance conference looking at fisa and intelligence gathering. The House Financial Services subcommittee examines the impact of Artificial Intelligence on capital markets. At 12 30 retired army general john mickelson, commander of us and nato forces in afghanistan speaks on defense and diplomacy and that country. The house will be in order. For 40