Can the Army Do More?

My Family and I are in the middle of a PCS move.  We’ve recently left Fort Benning, GA and are excited to be joining the 101^st at Fort Campbell, KY.  Though this is a dream assignment for me, this Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move, more than any of our past moves, has left the family extremely stressed, our kids have been out of school for more than two weeks now, we are still living in a hotel, and I start work in less than a week, joining a unit that is already deployed, meaning that I could realistically deploy within a month.  This move came on short notice, and like any time orders come down, there isn’t much you can do except execute.  More than anything, this move has left me wondering if the Army can do more to provide temporary housing for PCS-ing families.

There has to be a better way than the current system.  I received my orders exactly 36 days before my sign out date; 51 days before my report date.  This meant that I had to immediately turn in a 30 day “notice to vacate” to my current land lord, and try to start looking for suitable houses to move my family to when we got to our next duty station.  Additionally, from my sign out date, which was non-negotiable, we had 25 days to our report date, also non-negotiable. 

Of course the first calls I made were pretty standard, setting up our move and terminating our lease.  Immediately following that, I called the housing office of my gaining post.  I was told the wait for housing that would be suitable for our family would be four to six months from our sign out date.  I’m going to re-state that so it can sink in, four to six months from our sign out date.  For obvious reasons, this is a problem for both me and my family.  I can’t move my wife and kids into a hotel for four to six months.  Not only is it ridiculously expensive, but then I have no way of signing my kids up for school as all schools require families to have a legitimate address. 

Anyone with a family knows these frustrations.  It is easy to turn to the internet and start looking for housing, but what we see on the internet is not usually close to reality.  A camera’s lens and a seller’s pen can make just about anything look like a dream home, but there is no way of knowing anything about an area that you’ve never been to until you actually have the opportunity to drive through the neighborhoods and see the surrounding areas for yourself.  It simply isn’t possible to know what will actually work for you and your family until you get on the ground.  Which, of course, means you don’t actually get to take any leave.  My entire leave, and I am now using my Permissive TDY as well, has been spent trying to find a suitable home for my children, in a decent school district, that we can afford.

This move has left me wondering if there is more the Army can do to provide temporary housing for families that are moving.  Why should any family have to wait four to six months from their sign-out date to get a home on post to live in?  I thought we privatized on-post housing so that it would run more efficiently and be better for families.  I know that not every post is like this.  I have friends that received on-post housing upon arrival at other places.  For the posts that don’t have enough housing however, there needs to be a better way. 

I did receive a list from the post housing office of places that offer “short-term” leases: month-to-month, three month, and yes, six and twelve month leases (no, I’m not sure why places that only offer six and twelve month leases were on the list at all).  This list wasn’t something that was simply handed to me however.  I had to seek it out.  I actually had to ask for it after I stumbled on some information somewhere that led me to believe that maybe such a thing might exist. 

I don’t have answers to any of these questions; only frustrations.  I would like to see a better system to offer more readily available “temporary” housing for all soldiers when they move from one post to another.  The logistics of such a thing are potentially absurd, but perhaps it is a simple as getting with local apartment complex companies, and allowing them to build apartment complexes on post or convincing them to build near post with the understanding that the apartments would be temporary living arrangements for families until they found a more permanent address.  This would take the cost of temporarily housing families off the shoulders of the army, and leave it in the civilian sector.  My family isn’t really suited for apartment life, but if I was in an apartment surrounded by families going through exactly what I was, I think we could make that work.  Additionally, I would be able to send my kids to school right away, at least on post.