FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Feb. 21, 2019) – As part of an ongoing Armywide effort to resolve unsatisfactory conditions in Army family housing, Fort Leonard Wood’s leadership will hold a town hall to provide information and gain feedback from 6 to 7 p.m. Feb. 27 at the Pershing Community Center.
This town hall is an internal forum for installation leaders to personally connect with Soldiers, Army families and other residents of Fort Leonard Wood to help ensure they are meeting their obligations to provide safe, quality family housing.
In a recent statement, Secretary of the Army Dr. Mark Esper stated, “We are deeply troubled by the recent reports highlighting the deficient conditions in some of our family housing. It is unacceptable for our families who sacrifice so much to have to endure these hardships in their own homes. Our most sacred obligation as Army leaders is to take care of our people – our Soldiers and our family members.”
Esper added “We will hold our chain of command and private contractors accountable to ensure they are meeting their obligations to provide safe, high quality family housing.”
The contractors he refers to are private companies who partner with the Army to provide housing as part of the Residential Communities Initiative.
Senior members of Balfour Beatty Communities will join Fort Leonard Wood’s senior leaders to engage residents of Fort Leonard Wood housing. These leaders want to ensure residents understand their rights as tenants in privatized housing, how to report a concern and receive prompt action, and how to address any complaint they feel is unresolved.
The town hall is slated to be live streamed on the Fort Leonard Wood Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/fortleonardwoodmissouri.
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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.