FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (March 21, 2019) – Since the Feb. 27 housing town hall held here, commanders, the Directorate of Public Works and Balfour Beatty have been working diligently to identify and address resident’s concerns.
According to Luis Rosario-Febus, Garrison Housing Division chief, 103 maintenance work orders were submitted by residents immediately after the town hall. Of those work orders, 56 have been worked and are closed. For the 47 work orders that remain open, appointments have been scheduled with those residents.
In addition to the town hall, Fort Leonard Wood Garrison Commander Col. Eric Towns said command teams have visited every home on the installation to document issues and concerns, and to receive feedback from residents regarding on-post housing. All concerns have been captured in a consolidated database so the Garrison Housing Division can monitor the progress of the housing partner’s maintenance execution. Towns said the Garrison team will continue to monitor the Fort Leonard Wood Homes’ processing of those issues.
In a letter to residents, Fort Leonard Wood Homes, the limited liability company between Balfour Beatty and Fort Leonard Wood, said “every work order is important to our team, and we are working diligently to address every request while ensuring we deliver high-quality work.”
“Our maintenance team is prioritizing all emergency and urgent work orders to ensure these issues are managed immediately and resolved completely,” the letter said. “If you have submitted a routine work order for your home, there may be a brief delay in our response as we address these emergency and urgent requests.”
Towns said now that 100 percent of the homes on Fort Leonard Wood have been visited, the team is committed to ensuring the issues identified during those visits are appropriately addressed.
“As we move into the future, our Garrison Housing Division within DPW is being augmented with more personnel to increase quality assurance oversight of our partner’s maintenance procedures. The Housing Division will follow up on 100 percent of all life, health and safety work orders,” Towns said. “The Garrison Housing Division will also provide 100 percent quality assurance of all change-of-occupancy maintenance to ensure that incoming residents receive a safe, clean and healthy home upon arrival. Finally, the Housing Division will conduct a 5 percent follow-up on all routine work orders.”
Furthermore, the Garrison and other chains of command will increase engagement with residents on post. The Garrison commander will begin quarterly housing-specific town halls in April to continue to monitor and address concerns of residents.
Unit commanders will begin a more active role in receiving and addressing their service members’ housing concerns.
Finally, the Garrison Housing Office within the Directorate of Public Works is always available to address unresolved housing maintenance concerns. The Garrison Housing Office can be reached at 573.596.0859.
-30-
About Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Leonard Wood is a thriving and prosperous installation that has evolved from a small basic training post more than 75 years ago to a premier Army Center of Excellence that trains more than 82,000 military and civilians each year.
Fort Leonard Wood is home to the U.S Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and three U.S. Army schools: the U.S. Army Engineer School; U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear School; and the U.S. Army Military Police School. In addition to training engineer, CBRN and military police specialties for the Army, Fort Leonard Wood also provides gender-integrated in-processing and Basic Combat Training for new Soldiers.
Fort Leonard Wood also hosts and trains with the largest Marine Corps and Air Force detachments on any Army installation as well as a large Navy construction detachment.
More information about Fort Leonard Wood is at: https://home.army.mil/wood/index.php/about/mission.