JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — May is the start of the busy military moving season, and thousands of local service members could be caught in the fallout of a new program.
Action News Jax has been investigating the military’s rollout of the Global Household Goods Contract.
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Investigator Emily Turner talked to military members whose goods were late or lost. As a result of all the issues, the military dialed back the new program and its company, Homesafe Alliance. Now, she’s talking to local business owners who are caught in the breakdown as well.
Usually, this is the time of year when Stefan Cordeiro with Stewart Moving and Storage would be ramping up and running his crews hard. This year, he said, that’s not quite the case.
“Last year in April, we hauled roughly about a million and a half, one million five hundred thousand pounds of furniture,” he said. “This April, we hauled just a little over 500,000 pounds.”
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That’s a significant drop and a big difference to the bottom line.
Military moves, the bulk of his business, are supposed to be sent to a new company, Homesafe Alliance. As Action News Jax has already reported, that decision launched a lawsuit, a change.org petition, and a bevvy of complaints within the community the new program was supposed to help.
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“The stress does not end from start to finish,” Jacksonville Navy member Olivia said.
As a result, the military scaled back the rollout of GHC, but the fallout continues.
The problems have gotten so bad, Action News Jax has obtained a copy of a notice the Army issued, delaying new GHC moves with Homesafe.
Cordeiro chose not to work through Homesafe because he said the rates it sets are unsustainable.
“You either take the work and what they’re offering,” he said, “and their contract is not favorable in any means to the actual service provider.”
And even though he can still move military members outside of that program, it’s still costing him money. He said rates he was able to charge the military just last year are now being rejected, slashing the number of moves he can make and the revenue he gets from them.
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Cordeiro has written the head of the United States Transportation Command several times and met with them once, hoping to effect change before things get worse.
He’s had no luck, though, saying, “Everybody has been spewing their concerns for at least the last two years now, and it’s just falling on deaf ears.”
We reached out to Transcomm almost a week ago for a comment and data on how the Homesafe rollout is going. We were told they’re working on the data and that they are “anticipating some new information soon.” We’ll let you know what that is when they tell us.
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