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Shown are two of the 186 housing units that make up Admiralty Village in Kittery.
A U.S. Senate investigative panel has lambasted a landlord of military housing — including more than 200 homes in Maine — over claims the contractor operates unsafe, unsanitary properties in two other states.
Turns out, Navy sailors and families in the Kittery homes of Balfour Beatty Communities LLC have lodged similar complaints.
At a hearing last week, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations grilled Balfour Beatty executives and tenants about housing conditions at Fort Gordon Army Base, in Georgia, and Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas.
Based on an eight-month investigation, the subcommittee also issued a scathing report that alleges “ongoing mistreatment of these service members and their families and mismanagement by [Balfour Beatty] that has put the health and safety of military families at risk.”
Balfour Beatty last year pleaded guilty to federal charges it falsified housing repair records from 2013 to 2019 in order to receive performance bonuses from the Defense Department. The company paid $65.4 million in fines and restitution.
At the April 26 hearing, the bipartisan subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., said it appeared the company's pattern of behavior was continuing.
“Why should a company convicted of major criminal fraud that engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States remain in a position of trust, responsible for the safe housing of heroes, the service members and their families, on installations across the country?” Ossoff asked.
Among the conditions cited in Georgia and Texas by the eight-member Senate panel: toxic black mold, roof leaks, faulty appliances and other potential hazards. In one case, an Army officer's 8-year-old daughter suffered a serious skin disease as a result.
The dangers resemble those documented in 2013 at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. And a more recent report showed Navy families there continued to have deep concerns about the threats.
Under its Defense Department contracts, Philadelphia-based Balfour Beatty runs privatized housing at the Georgia and Texas bases, along with the Navy shipyard in Maine and 52 other U.S. military installations.
The company and about a dozen other contractors together operate nearly all Army, Navy and Air Force housing, usually under 50-year joint-venture agreements.
In Kittery, Balfour Beatty has 186 two-, three- and four-bedroom townhouses near the shipyard, in a complex known as Admiralty Village. There are also 26 units, mostly larger spaces in historic buildings, on the yard’s grounds. The rentals house Navy personnel who work at PNSY, or who are stationed there while Navy submarines are serviced. Admiralty Village also is home to a small number of civilians when space is available.
Admiralty Village was where a local newspaper, the Portsmouth Herald, reported many residents were complaining of mold and other problems in 2013.
One resident said mold in her kitchen was thought to be the cause of headaches and breathing trouble she and her family experienced.
“I could be out for four or five hours and feel relief, then come back and after two or three hours feel it again,” she told the paper. “Our doctor said the mold could very well be the cause."
In February 2013, two months after reporting conditions to Balfour Beatty, the family had to move to a hotel while the apartment was sealed and the mold removed. It was another month before they could move back.
Around the same time, Balfour Beatty and its Navy joint venture were fined $150,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to tell families about possible lead-based paint hazards. The families included 10 occupants of PNSY housing and others in Connecticut.
But perhaps the most serious criticism of the Kittery complex was based on a survey conducted in 2019 by an advocacy group, the Military Family Action Network.
According to results that were compiled by Reuters news service, residents of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard housing graded their living conditions as the second-worst among more than 100 military bases nationwide.
The Kittery housing received a score of 1.8 on a 1-to-5 scale, meaning “negative,” and none of the responses gave Balfour Beatty a single positive rating. Health complaints, including about mold, were among the most common reasons.
The score ranked the PNSY housing even lower than the two bases cited by the Senate subcommittee. Fort Gordon and Sheppard received scores of 2.3 and 2.0, respectively.
The survey findings came from a relatively small number of residents, 15, although not that much smaller than samples for the other two sites. In comparison to the 212 units in Kittery, there are 1,000 at Fort Gordon and 700 at Sheppard.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Balfour Beatty said it was unaware of any current complaints about mold at its Kittery location. The company conducts “rigorous preventive maintenance checks on the homes to ensure there are no issues or conditions that would contribute to mold growth,” the spokesperson said.
The company also criticized the subcommittee findings, saying, “We are disappointed that the PSI’s report does not accurately reflect the company’s level of commitment to its military residents and their families or acknowledge the significant steps that have been taken to address the small number of complaints that were discussed.”
But across the country, the problem has persisted enough to prompt the Defense Department to launch its own inspections of contracted properties housing Army, Navy and Air Force families. The inspections, ordered in 2020, began taking place in Kittery last fall and are continuing now.
Meanwhile, elected officials are watching and waiting to learn more.
“America’s service members and their families make immense sacrifices for the defense of our nation, and we have a responsibility to ensure that they have a safe place to live,” U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told Mainebiz.
“The ongoing reports of serious deficiencies at military housing are deeply concerning, and I strongly support any and all efforts to ensure that contractors charged with housing our military families fulfill their duties.”
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