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Services slow to set standards for barracks

The definition of “inadequate barracks” is ... inadequate.

Defense and service officials haven’t fully defined inadequate barracks, much less determined how many service members live in them.

Lawmakers want to know, so they can figure out how much money is needed to fix them.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the House Appropriations military construction subcommittee, wants defense officials to provide details within a month on how many service members live in inadequate barracks as well as in family housing — and, while they’re at it, shed some light on how they define “inadequate.”

“A year from now, I want to ask the same question, and I would like to see the same definitions and the numbers on the same assumptions, same definitions, so we can measure the success and ... talk about it,” Edwards said at an April 2 hearing.

“I don’t think there is a clear standard from year to year to see where we have come and where we are going,” he said.

After wrestling with the barracks question themselves, defense officials commissioned a study in January to review the status of unaccompanied housing across the services.

Officials are coming to grips with defining inadequacy — deciding whether to adopt a Defense Department-wide definition or work with a definition from each service, said Joe Sikes, director of the Pentagon’s Office of Housing and Competitive Sourcing.

The study, to be completed by December, will look at the full spectrum of barracks, including permanent party and training barracks, Sikes said, and provide baseline data on their status.

The study will address the definition of “inadequate” and how many troops live in such facilities. It will look at the services’ barracks requirements — taking into account population growth at some installations under force-sizing and restructuring initiatives — and how much it will cost to meet those requirements.

Sikes said the basic indicator of an inadequate barracks has been whether it has a gang latrine — multiple people sharing a bathroom.

“But it’s more complex than that,” he said.

Overall condition of the barracks also is considered. A building might meet the service’s requirements for the amount of space and alignment of rooms — such as a private room for each service member — but it may have faulty pipes in need of repair, Sikes said.

Barracks without enough space for their occupants also could be labeled inadequate. And the definition could differ depending on whether the barracks house permanent-party personnel or are used as training barracks, such as those for new recruits.

Who is required to live in barracks — a military culture question that varies among the services and can depend on paygrade, job and type of unit — also is a factor.

The Army and Marine Corps, for example, have stricter policies than the Navy and Air Force in terms of requiring their troops to live in barracks.

The Marine Corps, citing a need for unit cohesion, also has a waiver from the Defense Department requirement that every service member, including junior personnel, be provided a private barracks room. The Corps’ standard for junior Marines is two to a room.

In the Navy, the norm used to be that junior sailors stationed on ships lived on ships. But that is changing with the Homeport Ashore program, which provides quarters ashore for sailors when their ships are in port. As such, the Navy needs more barracks space for its single sailors.

Sikes said the definition of “inadequate” should be in a format that helps the services make a decision on what actions might be needed on barracks.

“We have to answer the simple question first about gang latrines,” he said. “That’s where we start.”

The Navy views gang latrines as the basic sign of inadequate permanent-party barracks. The definition does not address overcrowding or the condition of sailors’ quarters. As part of its 2009 budget, the Navy is asking for money to eliminate its last gang latrine quarters at San Clemente Island, off the California coast.

The Marines define “inadequate” permanent-party barracks as those that have gang latrines or can’t be economically repaired and should be demolished, Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Amy Malugani said.

“Economically repairable” generally means the repair cost does not exceed 70 percent of the building’s replacement value.

While the Corps had funds in place by 2005 to eliminate its gang latrines, that goal has slipped because some of those buildings have had to be used as “swing space” while other buildings were renovated or built, or as temporary housing made necessary by surge requirements.

Because about 2,300 Marines live in inadequate housing, the Corps has launched a major initiative to improve barracks, requesting $1.2 billion in the 2009 budget to provide 12,370 barracks spaces in 35 projects.

The Army’s definition of “inadequate” has to do with room configuration. Through the “1+1” model, junior enlisted soldiers get a private bedroom and share a kitchen and bath with one other soldier. By that measure, about 33,200 soldiers live in inadequate barracks, Army spokesman Dave Foster said.

Like the Navy, the Army’s definition does not address the condition of barracks.

DISCUSS: Define adequate