Where do military and veteran families need the support? Currently, it would comprise hospitable housing, living income, and social work services.
First, the housing: There have been a series of scandals surrounding the privatized housing on military installations. For those that do not know, there is housing available on military installations for families, and they are maintained by contractor companies. At the end of 2021, one of the housing contractor companies tasked to maintain military base housing, Balfour Beatty Communities LLC, had pleaded guilty to defrauding the military over faked maintenance reports and agreed to pay more than $65 million in fines and restitution. The chairwoman of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee has stated “Servicemembers and their families experienced mold exposure, rodent infestations, water leaks, smells, broken appliances, rude and dismissive housing management, and adding insult to injury, there was ineffective oversight of the program by the services.”
What could assist in this would be more oversight for those that are in control. This could be accomplished with H.R.3165 – Military Housing Transparency and Accountability Act, which would add more requirements to the military housing complaint database in order to create better reports.
For veteran families, housing is a very important issue. Many veterans find themselves having to choose between working to provide for their families or taking care of themselves physically or mentally. It can become a scary situation because some veterans cannot work for physical or mental reasons, and they must wait for benefits. H.R. 3186 – Supporting Veteran Families in Need Act could assist because it is supposed to make permanent the authority of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide financial assistance for supportive services for very low-income veteran families in permanent housing.
Second, a living income: House Rep. Don Bacon, a former Brigadier general, and base commander to the district he represents, champions an increased income for junior enlisted service members and adjustments to stipends. He has said, “You shouldn’t have to come in the military and, to put food on the table, be on the SNAP program, that’s unacceptable.” This is where S. 497 could come in to assist because it would exclude the basic allowance for housing from the income eligibility purposes for the supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP). This way more military families will be eligible for nutrition assistance purposes. Per Roll Call, “Based on the latest Defense Department survey of U.S. troops, some 286,800 in the active-duty force — or nearly one in four military servicemembers — experience “low food security.” Of those, an estimated 120,000 are faced with “very low food security.”
Speaking of income, military spouse unemployment was surveyed to be 21% in 2021. For reference, the current national unemployment rate is 3.7%. One of the reasons for unemployment is that service members and their families have little control over where they live. So, S. 349 – Military Spouse Employment Act would possibly fix this issue without accruing too much cost to the government. This bill would allow military spouses who are employed by the government to be allowed to work remotely.
Third, social work: Transitioning from being a military family to a veteran family can be rough, and there is only so much that the Department of Defense can do, especially after the discharge is complete. S.622 – Helping Heroes Act of 2023 would require a family coordinator at every VA hospital that could help families access the many services that are available to them.