Senator requests answers from Pentagon over low use of military family housing feedback system

An online review system for military family housing only shows 45 posts in the year since it launched, triggering Sen. Elizabeth Warren to write to the Pentagon for plans to better promote the accountability tool to the 700,000 troops and families living in privatized base housing.

“[The Defense Department] must do more to improve and fully effectuate housing reforms mandated by Congress and promote the [DOD Housing Feedback System] to provide accountability and better quality of life to service members and their families,” the Massachusetts Democrat wrote in a letter sent Sunday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Pentagon press office declined to comment on the eight-page letter but said Hegseth would respond in “due course.”

The feedback system went live in August 2024 based on a mandate from the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, an annual bill that outlines defense priorities and spending. The system allows service members and their spouses who live in on-base family housing with a private landlord to share their experiences in a public forum. It also allows unaccompanied service members living in privatized quarters to submit feedback.

Landlords can publicly respond to reviews.

The housing feedback system resembles online review websites for businesses, but users must be verified as residents to post, and all posts must be screened for personally identifying information or obscene language.

Of the 45 posts made to the website, some include information from the private company that manages the home about resolution or maintenance provided. Three posts were made last month and described issues with mold remediation and pet hair in carpets from a previous tenant. Older posts described issues including moving into homes where landlords knew there were broken appliances, pest infestations and communication gaps during power or water outages.

Warren said in her letter that she does not believe there are so few complaints because housing has improved so dramatically that there are so few disgruntled residents in the five years since law required the Pentagon implement the site, but rather that potential users are not informed it exists or don’t know how to use it. She cited surveys of tenants taken as recently as this year, including one the Army released in May. It found that satisfaction with housing was 76% and that “many tenants expressed frustration with the maintenance team’s inability to resolve issues effectively” and “tenants often have [had] to submit multiple work orders for the same problem.”

The housing reforms of 2020 also included a measure to create a dispute resolution process, which Warren also worried wasn’t being used to its full potential. The same Army tenant survey found that 70% of respondents were unaware of the resolution process or how to access it.

Warren included 19 questions in the letter to learn about promotion of the feedback system and tracking of those complaints and others that come to the military through other means. She also asked if and how officials track whether the complaints were fully resolved and any time requirements.

She asked similar questions about the dispute resolution process and for updates on other housing reforms, such as a fiscal year 2024 mandate to create a working group for housing issues.