Fort Huachuca post housing named Army’s best

Fort Huachuca post housing named Army’s best
FORT HUACHUCA (The Fort Huachuca Scout, Jan. 12, 2006)
The Fort Huachuca Housing Division, Di­rectorate of Public Works, was recently named the Outstanding Non-Privatized Housing Operation in the Army by the Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management. The post Housing Division competed against Army housing divisions around the globe, with a panel of judges looking at a range of criteria from off-post housing, to how unaccompanied-Soldier barracks are managed. The Fort’s housing office currently serves 2,926 single service members, 1,070 families, and provides about 1,750 quarters off-post. Sylvia Pete, chief Fort Huachuca Housing Di­vision, attributes the honor to the Housing Divi­sion staff’s focus on customer service. “Our employees in the unaccompanied person­nel housing, furnishing management and family housing branches have been extraordinary,” Pete said. “They are all customer service oriented and always go the extra mile constantly keeping a pos­itive attitude, and I think that is reflected in what we are able to accomplish and in the Soldiers’ satisfaction.” According to the text of the award nomination, the Housing Division uses an “agent concept” by cross-training housing inspectors and counselors and then assigning neighborhoods to provide cra­dle to grave service to Soldiers and their families. The concept resulted in an increase in customer satisfaction and a swell in the agents’ ownership of the houses. The Housing Division collects customer feed back from a variety of sources such as customer surveys, town hall meetings and Army Family Team Building symposiums to determine custom­er requirements and to reenergize their customer focus. “Our customer comment cards are probably our greatest source of feedback and we use those on a daily basis,” Pete said. “Time and time again the customer satisfaction surveys show not only on assignment to quarters but also on termina­tion from quarters, out of a possible five points we consistently score between 4.6 and 4.9 and the comment sections repeatedly say we are among the best housing that they’ve ever been in.” Replacing housing that is more than 50 years old is also a priority for the office, with deterio­rated units being replaced with new houses with dual-pane windows, long-lasting tile roofs and low water use landscaping. Water-using swamp coolers were replaced with air conditioning units, saving water and increasing the comfort of resi­dents. “When we are finished with this cycle by the end of [Fiscal Year] 08 we should have either all brand new or all completely renovated housing on Fort Huachuca,” she said During the replacement process, the Housing Division worked with military units, law enforce­ment and first responders to allow training to take place in quarters awaiting demolition. “If you take a look at the facilities that we have at Fort Huachuca, we’ve done a really good job over the years in aggressively seeking fund­ing from the Department of the Army,” Pete said. “And we used the funds that were made available to us in the regular budgeting process, making the best use of that money to program long range plans and following those plans through.” The Housing Division also built the first fully handicapped accessible playground in Arizona, allowing physically challenged children access to all the equipment. The overwhelming customer response to the improvement motivated the office to upgrade all the playgrounds on post. With Fort Huachuca being a National Historic Landmark, housing is responsible for the stucco and adobe historic homes along Brown Parade Field which are some of the last of their kind remaining in the United States. Working with the Arizona State Preserva­tion Office, housing personnel improved the infrastructure of the homes, enhancing safety for residents and ensuring the buildings will remain standing another 100 years. “All of the houses on Grierson in FY 06 and FY 07 will be renovated as they are vacated, so all of the stucco will be repaired like we did on Quarters One and Two,” she said. The nomination went on to say that Soldiers living in the barracks are also experiencing an in­crease in their quality of life with the Unaccompa­nied Personnel Housing Branch’s implementation of centralized barracks management. Single Soldiers now report to civilian manag­ers who follow the same procedures as traditional family housing operations. The new measures ensure Soldiers move into a clean and well-main­tained room. “We did centralized barracks management, but it’s not 100 percent at this point,” Pete said. “But we took the initiative to hire civilian barracks managers to take care of the various complexes, excluding the [Advanced Indi­vidual Training] Soldiers.” The housing office’s influence reaches into Sierra Vista and Soldiers’ off-post housing. Every new listing is inspected and older archived prop­erties are re-inspected to ensure the liv­ability of the unit. The housing office also works with local utility companies to waive deposits for electric and gas service. The Housing Division will be honored by the Professional Housing Managers Association at a profes­sional development conference in San Diego, Calif., Jan. 30-Feb. 3. The Fort Huachuca Housing Division will receive the association’s outstanding Army housing installation team award for traditional locations. The award goes to the housing team that provides an outstanding living environ­ment for service members and their families to include areas such as bachelor, family and transient housing. The PHMA promotes, provides and coordinates professional training and certification programs in housing and lodging management. The organizations mission is to contribute towards better quality housing for military members and their families by continuously raising the level of proficiency and professionalism within the military services’ housing profession. (Editor’s note information for this article was taken from the Professional Housing Managers Web site at www.phma.com/index.html)