JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The U.S. military said Action News Jax reporting has spurred major changes to the way it moves its members, but those changes are also causing controversy. In 2018, we covered local moving company Suddath and its military customer issues.
Since then, the company said it’s made major changes to improve services, but the federal government decided to overhaul the system anyway. Now, the new company in charge of military moves is facing criticism and complaints.
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The company, HomeSafe Alliance, said it’s working on the issues, but in the meantime, local military members could face problems if those improvements aren’t made quickly enough. NAS Jax is already part of this new rollout and the rest of Jacksonville’s bases are soon to follow.
Military wife Kaitlyn Jones has already dealt with a nightmare move with HomeSafe. Her house at her husband’s new base in San Diego sat empty for more than a month after their things were supposed to be delivered.
“We’ve just been sleeping on the floor,” she said. “We’re fortunate we brought our pillows and blankets at least. But, yeah, it’s just one bedroom. We barely have any stuff and few changes of clothes. That’s it”
2018 STORY: Military families say Jacksonville moving company stranding them for weeks without belongings
That’s because the new company contracted to move military members, HomeSafe Alliance, didn’t deliver until January 30 even thought everything was packed and loaded more than a month before on December 20.
It was supposed to arrive in San Diego from Pensacola on January 5, but because of delays, it didn’t arrive until well after Jones’ husband had to ship out.
“For him to go under way on his ship,” she said, “we had to go spend about $300 to get stuff that he would have had already had our stuff been here to take with him.”
2018 STORY: Suddath CEO promises changes after Action News Jax investigation
To streamline the process, the military consolidated its moving system from hundreds of companies to one. HomeSafe is now the sole contractor, moving all military, Coast Guard, and federal employees. That totals about 300,000 moves a year, across the globe.
But you just have to go to any military Facebook page or chatroom to see the transition has been a bumpy one. It launched lawsuits, a Change.org petition, and a bevvy of complaints by the very community that change was supposed to help.
We reached out to HomeSafe and it acknowledges the challenges. In an interview with Action News Jax, the company’s chairman, Byron Bright, said, “We’re in the very early days of ramping up this program and there are challenges as we do that. We are learning from those challenges, and we are continuing to make the program better.”
2018 STORY: Suddath CEO on military family complaints: ‘It pains us’
But those working under the old system say that’s not enough. As of Wednesday, HomeSafe said it has delivered about 1,300 moves. By May, Transcomm wants them to have taken over all domestic moves, totaling about 150,000 a year.
HomeSafe said it’s prepared, but Scott Kelly, president of Jacksonville-based military mover Suddath Government Services, said that’s a huge jump and success is unlikely. If moves go wrong, he said, “the impact on the customer is going to be morale, readiness, retention, recruiting.”
He understands firsthand the issues that arise with military moves. In 2018, Action News Jax covered complications with Suddath, including delays and damaged belongings. Kelly said that spurred the company to overhaul its customer service and make major improvements.
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Suddath is now part of a lawsuit suing the Department of defense over these changes, hoping to keep the legacy system under which it currently operates, in place. The problem, Kelly said, is that HomeSafe is a relatively new company, untested and without an established network of movers and haulers. HomeSafe argues legacy haulers like Suddath are part of the hold-up.
Outside of the legal and business back and forth, HomeSafe also sets the rates -- not the market -- making it impossible, some moving companies say, for them to do the job on what’s paid. If something major doesn’t change, Kelly said horror stories like Jones’ will be even more common come military moving season
“To be having service challenges right now, in January,” Kelly said, “is just inexcusable.” So come the busy moving season in the summer, he said, it’s “absolutely, absolutely,” going to be exponentially worse.
“I think you should be worried about getting moved on time, number one,” he said about military families with orders to relocate, “and getting out when you need to.”
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So Action News Jax took those concerns to the United States Transportation Command. The Director of the Defense Personal Property Program, Andy Dawson, said there are mechanisms in place to keep the worst from happening.
Dawson also said Transcom is committed to keeping these changes in place permanently. “Despite some of the early challenges we’ve seen,” Dawson said, " we see many positive aspects in GHC and we truly believe this will improve our service member relocation experience.”
That was not the case for Jones, though, and she hopes other service members won’t have to experience what she did as the program phases in, and the number of moves ramps up. “We can’t make this a home,” she says. “We’re just empty. There’s an echo everywhere.”
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Military OneSource updates GHC-live locations here, broken down by state.
For Florida, these are the live locations:
- Eglin Air Force Base
- Hurlburt Field
- MacDill Air Force Base
- Naval Air Station Jacksonville
- Naval Air Station Pensacola (Whiting Field, Corry Station)
- Patrick Space Force Base
For more information about the new Global Household Goods Contract program, including why Transcom says the initiative was undertaken and review its press releases you can go to its website here: https://www.ustranscom.mil/dp3/ghgc.cfm
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