Today, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's hearing titled "Mismanaged Military Family Housing Programs: What is the Recovery Plan?"
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for calling this important hearing.
"To begin, I want to commend the courage and persistence of military spouses for bringing this issue to our attention. Without the diligence of military families raising their voices on behalf of others, we might still be ignorant of these troubling problems. This was truly a grass roots effort in the best traditions of America.
"Sadly, our collective management of military family housing was not in keeping with those proud traditions. This is no question that Congress and the military services were less than diligent in our oversight.
"My colleagues will recall the compelling testimony we had from several military spouses last February. They described an unyielding bureaucracy unwilling to address health issues and closing work orders with no real resolution. The frustrations they faced in trying to resolve health and safety concerns for their families made a deep impression on all of us.
"Thankfully, the military services now understand and accept that they have not provided adequate oversight over housing programs and are each taking steps to improve the situation. To be sure, not all housing programs suffered from mismanagement. Even so, the general disengagement of service leadership and evisceration of housing staff, particularly at installation level, left a void. That void led to mismanagement at too many projects.
"By now, the military departments have assessed the situation. We are here to learn what needs to be done to fix the problems and maintain those fixes into the future. There is no more important work for this subcommittee to undertake.
