Family Housing Program

What is it?
The Army Family Housing (AFH) program builds, maintains, and operates a worldwide inventory of quality housing at installations where suitable quarters are not available on the local economy. The construction appropriation provides for new and replacement construction of homes as well as the revitalization of existing facilities. It also provides the government contribution to housing privatization projects under the Residential Community Initiatives (RCI). The AFH operations account is an annual appropriation that funds day-to-day operations, municipal services, furnishings, maintenance and repair, and utility costs of government-owned quarters. This operation account also provides for the cost of leased housing and management of the RCI program.

What has the Army done?
The AFH program, through the RCI program, has privatized more than 80,000 homes, building 17,000 homes, and renovating 13,000 homes at 39 installations.

What continued efforts does the Army have planned for the future?
For FY09, the AFH program has a budget of $1.363 Billion with $647 Million designated for construction and $716 Million for operation and maintenance of the Army’s worldwide inventory of 22,874 owned and 9,119 leased units.

According to the Housing Service Office (HSO) approximately 67 percent of our Soldiers and Families reside in private sector housing. The Army is refining and enhancing its housing services to satisfy this requirement and increase its visibility to be recognized by our Soldiers. The HSO is the point of entry for community and privatized housing. The HSO enhanced referral services have new methods of delivery, including the Department of Defense web-based multiple housing listing service referred to as the automatic housing referral network (http://www.ahrn.com), and Army Housing OneStop ( http://onestop.army.mil), which is the hosts 13 installation welcome videos. The Army will increase its efforts to brand the HSO and develop an accreditation program to make it more widely known to Soldiers, Families, and external stakeholders.

The Army will continue to lease housing in areas where on post housing is not sufficient or not available. Leases will continue to be a transitional solution for housing Soldiers and Families while RCI projects and private development seek to meet the increased demand brought about by significant force increases due to the Army Transformation and the Grow the Army initiatives. Leasing houses is also a tool to stimulate private development in markets where it has been suppressed. Currently there are 9,119 leased housing units in AFH inventory.

The Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Installation Management will centrally fund functional and professional development training to ensure that housing employees and career specialists have the knowledge and skills necessary to manage and sustain the Army’s increasingly complex portfolio of housing assets, and to provide quality services to support Soldiers and their Families’ housing needs. Army housing is developing future careerists through recruitment, training and placement of Army Civilian, Training, Education, and Development System (ACTEDS) interns. In FY08, Army housing hired eight ACTEDS interns.

Why is this important to the Army?
Quality housing is a key component of efforts to ensure increased retention and higher Soldier morale. When Soldiers and their Families are confident that their housing needs have been met, they can then focus on the mission. Therefore, the AFH is a key component to the Army’s overarching readiness strategy.