The Naval Air Station Key West has about 60 service members looking for alternative places to stay after two of their barracks were closed. The Navy built nearly $4,000-a-month trailers to market for leisure travel.
In an email to Military.com, base spokeswoman Danette Baso Silvers said that the base decided to shutter the housing for single, junior sailors to conduct much needed repairs and renovations.
Two sailors who spoke with Military.com said that the Navy's options are not feasible and that the alternatives are too expensive.
The military is throwing cash at the recruiting crisis.
Two-bedroom mobile homes intended for the base's Morale Welfare and Recreation (MWR) team to rent to vacationers are among those options.
According to flyers distributed to sailors in early May that were reviewed by Military.com, sailors would be charged between $3,810 and $3,937 a month to stay in the two-bedroom vacation rentals.
The rent is within the monthly housing allowances for single junior sailors, but it is split between two service members. There are 36 such trailers available at the base.
The rate for the trailers would increase in October, according to a flyer sent out last week.
The option was ridiculous, considering the price was for a trailer, according to a sailor who spoke with Military.com.
An E-1 to E-4 sailor with no dependents gets a housing allowance of $2,368 for Key West. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment on the island is around $3,000 according to several websites. Even if you are willing to pay the difference, finding an available unit is a challenge according to a sailor who spoke with Military.com.
Military.com is not releasing the names of sailors affected by the closing of the barracks because of their concerns about retaliation from Navy leadership.
A young sailor cannot afford a security deposit up front in many rentals.
Young, single sailors don't like privatized base housing. More than 130 single sailors are on the wait-list for privatized housing, according to one sailor. The other sailor said they were part of a group of three sailors who applied to be roommates and were told they would be waiting four to six months.
Since we are all single sailors, if a married family with kids comes, we get pushed back and pushed back.
The current wait-list for privatized housing can be up to four months, according to Silvers.
She said that the vacation rentals are an option in the interim.
Silvers said that the command is working with the Sailors living in the affected barracks to find them a place to live, and that closing the barracks was necessary for improvements to housing.
The $11 million renovations will include updates to the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system. Only 19 of the sailors impacted by the barracks closing have yet to find alternative housing.
One sailor told Military.com that two of their fellow sailors found something on the internet while living in a house with eight other people.
The plan seems to fail to take into account service members who are reporting to the command and need a place to stay while they arrange a permanent living situation, as noted by two sailors who spoke with Military.com.
One sailor said that he was worried about people coming from a school with no savings and being told to find a place in 10 days.
The military pays for 10 days of lodging for service members.
One sailor who spoke with Military.com said that a service member had to send his wife and child back to their home state while he slept on a fellow sailor's couch, while another had to sleep in a tent to cover the gap.
The way this base is run, I feel like it is more focused on the benefit of retirees going on vacation and the pilots being on vacation while they are training, rather than the people who are working here.
The Navy has struggled with the basic housing needs of its sailors in recent times, and the issues with the barracks in Key West are just the latest example.
An investigation by the Navy Times in February revealed that the service has known about infrastructure issues at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for years but has been unable to address them. After the Navy Times report was published, hundreds of junior military members were moved out of the affected buildings.
Military.com reported that the Navy didn't disclose a lot of suicides on the George Washington. Junior sailors were often forced to move onto a ship that was an active construction zone, complete with constant noise from power tools and unreliable services.
The commander of the GW told the crew that anyone living on the ship would be allowed to leave.
She said that the Navy Gateway Inn and the Navy Lodge were not considered a fix in Key West like the ones in Bethesda and George Washington were.
She said that the Sailors were given the option to live out in town or elsewhere on the base, which was the best option for long-term renovations.
Silvers said that if the Sailor chooses to stay in vacation rentals until the end of their tour that is a long-term option.
Silvers said that leadership understands the price of housing off base, which is why they have offered the rental units and the privatized base housing to the Sailors.
The sailors at Key West say their concerns have been ignored. A note posted by a Key West sailor to social media said that his command master chief laughed at him when he asked about it, and civilian department heads told him the same thing.
One of the sailors who spoke with Military.com said that the leadership consensus was that they had given them a housing allowance.
The person can be reached at Konstantin.toropin@military.com. You can follow him on the social networking site.
The captain told the crew that hundreds of sailors were being moved off the carrier.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
