Sequestration impacts Okinawa military family housing Published May 1, 2013 By Lt. Col. Mona Tenorio 718th Civil Engineer Squadron commander KADENA AIR BASE, Japan -- Most military members have heard about and felt the impacts of sequestration. These impacts include military family housing on Okinawa. As a result, certain cost-saving measures are being immediately implemented to save money to ensure the 718th Civil Engineer Squadron has funds available to provide a quality living environment for military families here. The first action, which took effect April 1, was a reduction to grounds maintenance in some of the large common areas in the housing areas. These cuts are estimated to save more than $100,000 per year and should minimally impact quality of life. The second target for cutbacks is the stock available in the self help stores. Housing residents will only be able to obtain heating, ventilation and air conditioning filters, specialty light bulbs and sandbags for typhoon preparation. A selection of tools will still be available for check-out. Self help will no longer provide painting supplies, shelving units and other items popular with customers. The reduction of these items from the Eagle Hardware stores will save an estimated $550,000 a year. Residents can still accomplish self-help projects on their units after obtaining an approved work request (AF Form 332) from the housing maintenance office. However, it will be at their own expense. The third area to be cut is the summer over-hire personnel for the housing management and housing maintenance flights. Traditionally, the flights employ 75 summer over-hires at a cost of $1.4 million to support the summer permanent change of station surge of in- and out-processing personnel, as well as to provide change-of-occupancy maintenance to vacated homes. As a result, 718th CES will not open the temporary satellite housing office at Camp Foster, traditionally used to issue keys for personnel viewing homes there. Residents will now have to travel to Kadena to obtain keys for viewing homes. This will increase the time it takes to perform change-of-occupancy maintenance, which could slow the process of assigning vacant homes to inbound families, resulting in increased time in temporary lodging. This will also increase the time it takes to resolve routine housing maintenance service calls from the current three-day response time, to six-eight days. The squadron will still respond to emergencies, such as air conditioner outages and major water leaks, within hours of a call for help. The lack of summer over-hires could potentially extend the time it takes to recover MFH neighborhoods after summer typhoons as well. Additionally, the current direction is to limit overtime to only mission-essential emergencies. Thus, the lack of overtime will also negatively impact our ability to meet the increased demands of the summer PCS season and the time to respond to military family housing repairs after typhoon events. As the summer approaches, here are few things to help Okinawa military families through this process. Families PCSing this summer should contact their housing office at least 60 days before their departure date to begin out processing actions. Kadena Air Base housing: 634-0582 Camp Kinser housing: 637-3736 Camp Courtney housing: 622-7317 People sponsoring a family moving to Okinawa are asked to recommend they not bring their pets until housing is secured, as many homes are not pet-friendly. Lastly, people with an emergency should not hesitate to call the 24/7 housing maintenance customer service section at 634-HOME (634-4663). Those with routine work requests can contact the section to schedule an appointment as soon as crews are available. The Department of Defense Housing Office and Housing Maintenance Flight will work hard to make up the difference. The 718th CES thanks military families here for their support in overcoming the budgetary challenges ahead of Okinawa.