Military families finally have a database for housing complaints

Military families now have access to a searchable database of tenant feedback, including complaints, about privatized military housing to aid their research before moving to a new duty station.

Defense officials announced the launch of the long-awaited DOD Housing Feedback System on Aug. 12. The publicly available database allows verified tenants to submit feedback about issues with their housing unit for inclusion in the database. Tenants’ personally identifiable information will be removed from the entry before it’s published in the database.

The public has access to and can search the new database.

“The searchability is a huge advantage for military families,” said Kelly Hruska, government relations director of the National Military Family Association. “The more information they can have on the housing at their new installation, the better off they are and the better choices they can make.”

Active-duty service members and their dependents currently living in privatized housing can submit feedback. Dependents are also allowed to submit feedback on behalf of service members who are deployed or on assignment. The website verifies occupancy and military status.

The database is an additional channel for those living in privatized housing to submit public feedback about their housing conditions and to receive feedback from their landlord, officials stated in an Aug. 12 announcement. The DOD Housing Feedback System doesn’t replace the existing processes for submitting maintenance work order requests. Residents should continue to use the channels for submitting these requests first through the community’s property manager or other regular channels to get the problems fixed.

The Defense Department “has a moral obligation to ensure that the spaces where our service members and their families live are healthy, functional, and resilient,” said Deborah G. Rosenblum, acting deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, in the announcement. “This new feedback system is a critical step to ensuring transparent and timely responses to occupants’ concerns.”

The database was one of the reforms to the Military Housing Privatization Initiative included in the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to address problems such as black mold, rodents and other issues plaguing military privatized housing . Families were frustrated at the lack of response from some privatized housing landlords and military leaders. DOD and service officials have taken a number of steps to improve housing and their oversight .

The database’s searchable information includes service branch, installation, landlord and type of feedback, such as structural problems, mold/moisture/water intrusion, heating, air conditioning and ventilation and lead-based paint, among others. The public can also search within specific time frames. Information was not immediately available about whether the feedback will include positive comments.

Before the feedback is published, the local military housing office will review the information. Landlords can respond through the website, and their responses are also published after review, according to the database. Most landlords respond within 10 days, officials stated.

Military tenants were promised a database for housing complaints. They're still waiting.

For years, lawmakers have pressed defense officials to move more quickly to implement the database.

“It’s a database, a complaint database. This is not rocket science,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, during a Feb. 15, 2022, hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“We’re in year three of people who want to be able to tell you about things like rats and insects and black mold,” Warren said. “I would think that the military would want to know about this.”

At the time, a Pentagon spokesman told Military Times that officials were running into roadblocks establishing the database because of budgetary and federal Privacy Act issues.

Meanwhile, the Military Family Advisory Network is “seeing an increase of people wanting to live on base, and a big piece of that is the economy and the housing market,” said Shannon Razsadin, chief executive office for the organization. She said the database can be a potentially helpful tool for military families before they make a decision to live on base. As part of the reforms, military tenants are now given a seven-year work-order history of their housing unit once they are assigned to the unit.

“But this seems like a broader stroke, in advance of the housing assignment,” she said.

“I’ll be interested to see how this plays out,” Razsadin said. The Defense Department “has made strides in increasing the transparency” around housing issues, she said. But officials also need to get the word out so families are aware of the new tool, and how to use it, she added.

“We need to make sure the work that’s happening at the Pentagon level is reaching the people who need to get the word.”