For some military families with special needs, promised support doesn’t always materialize

One military family arrived at a duty station without the accessible housing they had spent months trying to secure. Another spent entire deployments on waiting lists for specialized medical care for their children.

A third experienced both, arriving at a new assignment only to find that the special needs medical services they had been told would be available were not, and the housing offered did not meet their son’s needs.

Those experiences, described in recent interviews with Stars and Stripes, are consistent with problems also documented in federal watchdog reports on the Defense Department’s Exceptional Family Member Program, or EFMP.

Launched by the Army in 1979 and standardized across the Defense Department in 2010, the program is meant to help military families with special medical or educational needs.

It aims to consider those needs when making duty assignments and to help families access medical care, schools and other services. But some families say the help they received often fell short of what they needed from the program.

“The concept is great; the way that it’s actually being used … is horrendous,” said Army spouse Chelsea Ouimette, whose husband is assigned to Fort Belvoir, Va.

Ouimette’s family needs a ground-floor home without stairs because she has a medical condition that can cause her to lose consciousness and fall.

Since such a home is not yet available at the installation, the family has been staying in off-base hotels since arriving about a week before her husband’s Aug. 1 report date.

The disruption has been especially hard for the family’s 3-year-old son, who has autism and relies on stability and routine, Ouimette said.

The Ouimette family began seeking answers months before the move. After her husband received his orders in February, Ouimette repeatedly called the EFMP office at Fort Belvoir to see whether accessible housing was available and whether the base hospital could support their family’s medical needs.

Officials referred her to Tricare, the military’s health care program, or other offices, but she was still unable to get the information she needed, she said.

In March, Ouimette filed an inspector general complaint but was told she was on the waiting list for housing, according to the IG’s response. A month later, she sought help from the office of Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., which put her in touch with Belvoir’s garrison command team.

Sgt. Maj. Brandon Creel connected the family with medical officials at the base hospital, Ouimette said. But the family’s housing problem remains unresolved.

Garrison spokeswoman Ganesa Robinson said she could not comment on the Ouimette case due to privacy laws.

But, Robinson said, moves are approved based on the availability of specialized medical care and special education services in the area, while on-base housing is managed separately.

“Even a fully validated EFMP requirement does not guarantee a home will be immediately available,” Robinson said. “On-post housing is voluntary and highly sought after and wait times can fluctuate.”

According to revamped regulations implemented in 2023, family support providers must assist before, during and after the move, and coordinate services at a new installation. But the regulations do not specify what should happen if suitable housing is unavailable.

Coordination confusion

Many of the problems reported with EFMP occur during moves.

That was the case for the family of Meg Graves, a Navy spouse whose two sons have autism and need special education services and other support that is not always available in the same form or at the same level at each new duty station.

Graves, a cancer survivor, has also had to overcome geographical and logistical challenges to see specialists. Her husband is currently stationed at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., which is accessible only by a bridge in the north and ferries.

Her family has spent several deployments on waiting lists for doctors after moving to new duty stations, she said. At Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, they waited more than a year to see a developmental pediatrician. By the time they got an appointment, they were already preparing for their next move to a joint base in Virginia, where they were put on another waiting list.

Her son’s special education services have also been delayed after moves. The boy, now 12, was on an individualized education program, or IEP, that was tailored to his needs. At Whidbey Island, he was out of school for four weeks, including two weeks when the district was closed, while his IEP was transferred, Graves said. He has undergone four time-consuming IEP reevaluations, one at each school.

“The program is trying and it really is headed in the right direction, but … there’s still too many loopholes and too many problems that need to be fixed overall,” she said.

Florida-based Army spouse Cary Vazquez said she has often had to advocate for her family after finding that services they expected at new duty stations were unavailable. Her 15-year-old son has a rare genetic disease and autism, and her 17-year-old daughter has scoliosis.

In 2014, a planned move to Fort Hamilton, N.Y., was canceled after Vazquez pointed out that the nearest specialists her family needed were too far away.

Instead, they were sent to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington, where they were told a new autism center would help their son. However, the center did not open until 2017, shortly before the family was due to leave again, she said.

“We were never able to access or benefit from the center,” she said.

The family has also encountered problems with housing.

In Washington, Vazquez said they were initially offered non-accessible housing but were able to secure a suitable single-story home after threatening to take the issue to base leadership.

After arriving at Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida in 2022, the family of four and their two dogs spent two months in a hotel room while waiting for on-base housing before deciding to buy a home. Six months later, she said, the housing office offered them a two-story home that would not have met their son’s needs.

“They tell you, ‘Yes, we have doctors on the other side; we have housing for you,’ but it’s just on paper,” Vazquez said.

Army spouse Cary Vazquez poses with her husband and two children in an undated photo. Vazquez has become an advocate for military families in the Exceptional Family Member Program after her own family struggled to get the medical and housing support they were promised during past moves. (Courtesy of Cary Vazquez)

Well-documented issues

Federal watchdog agencies have raised concerns about program oversight for more than a decade.

In separate reports in 2012, 2018 and 2023, the Government Accountability Office and the Defense Department Inspector General found that the Defense Department lacked appropriately standardized tools for measuring how well it was helping families with moves and other support, making it difficult to determine the program’s effectiveness.

A 2025 survey by the advocacy group Partners in PROMISE found that more than half of military-connected respondents with children in special education experienced delays in services after a move. The average delay was more than three months.

Only 30% of respondents indicated they were satisfied with the EFMP program, and 1 in 3 military respondents with children in special education reported that they were considering separating from military service, the survey said.

The Pentagon released its own survey in July 2024 that found 43% of respondents were satisfied with the program, while 33% were dissatisfied.

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to a questions about what steps it is taking to improve the program. In the past, the Pentagon has acknowledged shortcomings identified by watchdogs and agreed to changes aimed at improving oversight and measuring the program’s effectiveness.

But a 2023 Inspector General audit found that, despite progress, the department still lacked some of the data and measures necessary to identify shortcomings in services.

Vazquez, the Army spouse, believes more specialized case managers are needed to help families coordinate medical care, housing and other services during moves.

“Assignment coordination should be more seamless, more calming for the family, more personal,” she said.

Ouimette, meanwhile, remains in hotels while her family waits for accessible housing at Fort Belvoir.

“The whole time, I’ve had questions, and never got help,” she said. “The program needs an overhaul or oversight.”