Participate in the questions and there is a formal way i would ask unanimous consent and on Committee Member be allowed to participate in the hearing after the subCommittee Memberofthe sun opportunity to ask questions. Is there any objection . There being none, if none, you are recognized at the appropriate time for five minutes of questions. With that, but the committee will come to order. Ladies and gentlemen, i called the committee to order from the Armed Services committee. Since february of this year the committee has been conducting extensive oversight of the program. We first heard about the systemic failures and privatized military Family Housing program from a panel of courageous military spouses who provided graphic and disturbing testimony about lead, mold, exposure, infestations, rude and dismissive House Management and ineffective oversight of the program by the services. Then we heard from the assistant secretaries on their efforts to address the failures of oversight that would privatized military housing crisis. And the plans of the services to continue to make improvements. Today we will hear from five of the private military housing for verse for their perspectives and importantly their plans for bringing thela Family Housing bk to the level of our military families deserve. I also want to makee one thing clear. Why do we do not have all of the privatized military Housing Partners present today, that in no way means that those that are not here or off the hook. We are watching them and expect them to do right by the familier tmilies that they provide services to. Our oversight of this issue will continue and we are watching not only those that are here for those that are not. Heard troubling reports about the organization. Im particularly concerned about the reports of the abusive use of the nondisclosure agreements. Im putting you on notice the committee will be watching and we will not tolerate in any way the abusive problems that we are seeing. Its deeply troubling that still after these months i am getting reports that certain partners the seriousness of the issues facing our military families and frankly a lack of respect for the servicemembers and their families. They deserve better. While its clear that they have been working to improve conditions and processes since we first heard from the families in february, this committee and many of our members still hear from concerned military families continue to struggle with getting quality resolution is a maintenance concern and some of the unprofessional Property Management staff. There is work yet to be done and we will continue to follow up on these issues until they are resolved to the satisfaction of the military families and the ilcommittee. One of the things that has permeated the discussion around the privatized Family Housing is the issue of ineffective management particularly at the installation level. The symptoms of the problem have taken many forms including disrespectful Customer Service personnel, an experienced maintenance teams performing low quality maintenance and consequences resulting from wrong contract performance. Weve heard about the department of Defense Initiatives to address these issues because daytoday management ibut becan the purview of the private part or, im interested in hearing what you have to say about what you are doing to change the culture at the installation level. As military services have committed to their oversight role, they are working to improve the process and refine the metrics that are used to measure the performance of each m housing project. I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses with the degree to which they are cooperating with thesehe dinitiatives and the steps they are taking to ensure that housing enterprise is as transparent as possible. Counterproductive practices such as closing Maintenance Work orders before the problems are resolved in order to artificially bolster the closure statistics or asking them to sign nondisclosure agreements as a matter of routine when they move out of the unit are simply not acceptable. Youve had enough time to assess and scrutinize the problems and as we move into 2020, the focus now must be on action. Not only must posses be instituted across the enterprise, but you must develop mechanisms to ensure that sustainment of the positive change to ensure they receive highquality housing regardless of where they live. We asked our servicemembers and their families to sacrifice enough in service to their country. We will not accept substandard housing as well. These families deserve better and the committee will demand that they get the best. Thank you so much for joining us and i explained you were in a Committee Markup casting votes. Im sure they were old to my satisfaction. You will be just as satisfi satisfied. Thank you for having this hearing and for being here as mrs. Thank you, everyoneon in the shoving your concern. Today we will hear testimony from the companies that make the privatized military family m housing model work. As someone whose district has almost 40,000 military members an48,000 military membersand lie been deeply troubled by the lack of oversight in the program and our military families deserve better. Our committee has heard significant concerns about insufficient remediation and terrible Customer Service with numerous military installations most recently at the air force base in florida and well worth. We are not going to address them today but theres also been allegations of fraud in extreme cases. According to a survey released earlier this year by the military Family Advisory network, 63 of the respondents that live in my district said the units needed better maintenance, repairs were remediation. Its been described as poor Customer Service. The military housing privatizationn initiative began as publicprivate ventures as the means to modernize housing and improve efficiency and growtimproved efficiency andgror future investments. Oversight is challenging because each military department manages the programs differently and the respective projects are governed by unique agreements. It is a total of 35 projects the navy and marine corps have 15 and airport yesterday to. Oversight is further complicated the army and the navy projects because they are part of his for developers and the limited limid liabilities with both sides investing capital. My hope is that the attention has served as a wakeup call to both of the military departments and the Housing Partners but not the expensive military families. Every dollar wasted and it was mismanagement or incompetence diminishes the longterm viability of the reserve accounts thatil are vital for te future recapitalization. The house and senate both passed significant Bipartisan Legislation in th and the defene bills this year and i look s. Forward to enacting meaningful reform. First and foremost is the tenets bill of rights. Three sent ig report found a pervasive misconception that when the housing was privatized, it was effectively outsourced. But leaders didnt actively engage as theyer might have on other issues based upon the misunderstandings of their authorities. Weve heard that some installation commanders characterized the government as the weaker or 49 partner in the housing agreements. Employing that they have limited means to address the shortcomings. Oversight is a inherently governmental and it is not optional. On some installations there is confusion regarding the identity of the Installation Housing Office and office of the housing part of her. It should be clear to we must reform the Privatized Housing projects. 82018 report highlighted and found the military. The futurfuture sustainment need funding to assist the project sustainability. Im beginning to question the wisdom of the waterfall in the wider recapitalization accounts are only paid after the management partners. I look forward to hearing more about their perspectives on the Program Overall and actions they have taken to address any health and safety concerns and to improve Customer Service. We alsoo appreciate their thoughts on improving the Overall Program going forward. Thank you. The president of the military communities and the ceo of lend lease america coming dictator president facility operations Renovation Construction and president of th wind in theco fy housing. Your testimony will be put into the hearing record in the interest a a of time which we ae limited today because the votes will occur sometime after two or as late a as 2 30. I would ask you to limit your testimony and summarize to three minutes. My. Apologies for the pronunciation. Ranking members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am the founder and ceo and i am here on behalf of 950 dedicated team members many employeesve are veterans or spouses of active duty military members. The stupid people are generally committed to supporting those theprotect and defend nation. Its my honor to serve in this capacity. When i was first introduced with the Housing Program i was moved by how poorly we as a nation wereit caring for the military personnel and what was the most personal way p of all. When i found th that the compans some 20 years ago we found something to fix the challenges that were fixing the military. After 9 11, a very important j job. Last on the hill in february i said i was sorry in no uncertain terms. I apologize for the issues and some of the residents we are dealing with. I said we would do whatever it takes. Today i want to tell you a few of the things weve done sinc we i apologized nearly ten months ago. Since early 2019 weve been making changes in the effort to get back into the Gold Standard. The Gold Standard service will be known when we have deployed Service Members who are able to speak to their families about what is happening at school and not about ththenthought about ty were experiencing in their housing. What thewith a gurgling of the t defense and strong sense of community that has helped a Better Living environment. We added neighborhood staff to work directly with families of both the Service Call Centers back onto the installations so residents talked to somebody right down the street as opposed to the central coal station and we showed they use their smartphone or laptop to Place Service calls and track progress and let us know if we have gotten the job done right. We established the advocate to work as an ombudsman for those with more challenging issues. From the earlier days of the program it is well understood this to give the Service Members to homes they deserve and the program to operate in a consistent state of the public construction and financing. The housing finances have been based on the homes and building and maintaining homes both new and old and investment in the homes is an investment in the Service Members. That is why we have injected new money into the program 325 million over 2019 with another 150 million prepared for 2020 we are also putting close to 200 million to work from the C Partnership reserves. 675 million altogether at no cost to the government. These investments are used to replace or completely upgrade some of the most challenging homes we maintain more than 16,000 public t16,000 brought ur Energy Standards like air conditioning standards to give residents a better Home Experience while saving nearly 300 million in the course of th0 next 30 years. As someone whos bee been in the program for nearly 20 years i can say from personal experience the homesea we inherited were uninhabitable. Through the programh we were abe to upgrade or replace thousands of over homes in the earlier years and however, ton date 46 of the homes in the military portfolio were built before 1980 and some as old as 70. As we looked into the future theres a lot to be encouraged about some real challenges to deliver the Gold Standard service that costs more each year to maintain and drive constant investment in the homes and renovations. They will continue to work tirelessly to give. There is no higher calling in the industry thank you for the e time it went ove was over to the questions and dialogue. Distinguished members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity to be here. We are entrusted t to build quality communities for americas heroes and we take that responsibility very seriously. During the Senate Hearing in february, it became obvious to us there were families living in our homes fo whose voices were t being heard. They lost their trust, we are sorry and we want to get it right. We heard the residents loud and clear and we are focused on rebuilding their trust in us and improving their living experience. Over the past year weve been working diligently on that front. Merst, we recognized Quality Homes in the Resident Services depend on open and regular communication with those of them. We need to hear from all of our military families in order to address their issues. We made a number of improvements to make it easier to communicate with us. In addition we understand maintenance is a critical part of providing Quality Homes and earlier this year it became clear to us we had some room for improvement. Improvement. Is a proud partner of the department of defense to contain over 130,000 people per go mister chairman the issues discussed affect me personally no family much less a military family should be subjected to these living substandarddg Housing Conditions and then what we do to take care of military families but we have more work to do per go as an example 4000 Service Orders per year last monthly process 25000 Service Orders. 97 percent were on time and function however it does mean 3 percent were not effectively processed on time and that is the big issue so mister chairman and members of the oc that is my focus. What can we do to get the number down to assist these families more quickly than we currently are. Firstly we significantly increase customerin service. And to institute n new training modules. Ti for example we instituted for the maintenance people second we introduced the Smart Phone App for all the information including the ability to initiate and track a Service Request the app has doubled over the communities over the last six months. And with those techniques with those ventilation systems. And continuing to invest this includes modules of improved Customer Service and analytics. And finally with the work we have done to be an open and transparent environment with an active and engaged community. With the school and pta model as a benchmark and then you see a strong school. And then to regularly engage to Work Together to have qualityoflife concerns over 400 homes these represent the Advisory Board. The members of this board we believe this initiative is already giving way. Correspondence that i received last night for those military spouses that appeared earlier this year and with the toughest critics and then to benefit the residents on the micro macro level to better serve our military families. At the local and corporate with government offices and then most important need the residents to improve program work and efficacy. Mister chairmann we appreciate sensible solutions. And we commit to be part of the solution. My name is rick taylor president of facility operations and renovation and construction throughout the communities i appreciate the opportunity to testify today. On behalf of the communities i apologize for having short of the high standards the military families deserves. We are working hard to regain the trust and confidence of our residents of military partners it has been a humbling experience we have learned a lot in the ways that we do business with our living experience dash i would like to highlight three transformation efforts now. First we have reorganized this includes president of facility operations that means there is now a president in charge of and responsible for all military housing maintenance activities. The reorganization puts us at the table of the leaders. As a former navy Civil Engineer fully committed to provide a solution we are appointing a Senior Executive to a completely new physician to be responsible that effective change Management Program and second we are transforming the approach to deliver live mandatory conduct training to understand the fortunes of Business Integrity and ethics. We have enhanced Customer Service training to recently appoint a new Vice President of trading and added to our military housing staff00 and making more transparency for the