Military families are already reporting delays and cancellations while trying to arrange household goods moves under the Defense Department's new privatized system.
With only 688 moves completed by HomeSafe Alliance, the company contracted to manage the process, as of Jan. 17, families around the U.S. have reported instances of crews never showing up to pack their belongings, despite receiving confirmation messages, as well as waiting indefinitely to receive their items at their new home.
Meanwhile, a petition on the change.org website with more than 39,000 signatures at publication time says households can't arrange and conduct their own moves as they could in the past because the reimbursement rates for a personally procured move are too low, effectively forcing them into a government-contracted move through HomeSafe.
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In response to queries dating back to November, U.S. Transportation Command, which oversees the new moving contract, and HomeSafe Alliance denied that reimbursement rates and sourcing movers were legitimate issues.
HomeSafe acknowledged to Military.com on Jan. 28, however, that it has "experienced unexpected challenges which we have had to work through as we lead a complex transformation of the military move system."
No-Shows and Delays
Military spouses interviewed for this story described numerous calls to HomeSafe customer service representatives who could rarely provide details about the nature of the delays. One spouse said she is hopeful that her household will receive more than $2,000 after filing an "inconvenience claim."
Another spouse, Laura Brigman, said her family's move, requested in December, made them the "guinea pigs" to undergo a HomeSafe move at Fort Johnson, Louisiana. Her husband was close to his medical retirement date from the Army, with physical limitations that meant the family was counting on the military coming through to arrange a move, as it always had throughout his 11-year career, including two overseas moves the couple made together.
"We were very familiar with having the Army move us," Brigman said.
Recognizing that HomeSafe's system was new, they figured they'd "roll with the punches."
At first, things seemed OK with the arrangements, she said. They received multiple messages confirming the dates and times that crews would arrive to pack and load their things. But no movers ever showed up, and the HomeSafe customer service reps, for the most part, reported "no progress" during repeated calls.
The family had only nine days from their missed packing date until they had to be out of their home on post. When HomeSafe reps ultimately suggested the couple arrange a personally procured move, or PPM, instead, Fort Johnson's transportation office stepped in and had movers lined up within 24 hours to move the family to Wisconsin. HomeSafe had failed to do so for about two weeks.
Brigman considers the family "really lucky" to have received the transportation office's intervention, she said, but worries that local officials will get overwhelmed with emergency requests as the frequency of moves ramps up over the spring and summer.
Kaitlyn Jones said she and her Navy husband set up their move from Pensacola, Florida, to San Diego through HomeSafe. Movers turned up a day later than promised, but otherwise the packing and loading went fine. That was Dec. 20, and their belongings were supposed to be delivered by Jan. 4.
As of Jan. 26, with her husband already at sea, Jones still didn't know when their things would arrive but held out hope of receiving their full "inconvenience claim" of $86 a day after the delivery. She said the family had declined an offer by HomeSafe to "settle" Jan. 15 for less than half of what she thinks they could ultimately receive.
HomeSafe subsequently told Military.com, "While the majority of moves have been successful, logistical issues have impacted some of the moves we service. We are working hard to navigate these issues and strengthen our service provider network while supporting our service members and ensuring their needs are met with the highest level of care."
"We are taking all of the lessons learned from these early stages of our program and continually improving our systems and processes," HomeSafe said.
After delays attributed to snow, a holiday, and a broken truck, Katelin Golgart and her husband realized Jan. 21 -- after waiting all day Jan. 20 for movers who never showed up -- that "yeah, they're not coming." Again, the local transportation office took over and had "someone in the next day packing up our stuff."
Families are also reporting their experiences to the 66,000-plus-member PCS Like a Pro -- Your Smooth Move group on Facebook, along with the GHC Stories Facebook page.
A group of more than 1,000 companies and individuals in the moving industry that oppose the contract, Movers for America, distributed a compilation of social media posts in January that included more reports of no-shows as well as poorly equipped crews.
In response to a prior query by Military.com, HomeSafe said it was "postured to respond to any shipments USTRANSCOM awards us."
HomeSafe declined to introduce Military.com to households that had undergone successful moves, citing privacy.
How It's Supposed to Work
The DoD provides approximately 400,000 household goods moves each year to service members and their families, amounting to about 15% of all U.S. moves and making the military the industry's largest customer. Most military moves take place in late spring or summer.
The department cited service members' reduced satisfaction with the relocation process as a reason for privatizing the system, though the Government Accountability Office has since deemed that Transportation Command needs to better account for "non-response bias" in calculating user satisfaction because people with negative experiences are more likely to respond to surveys.
The privatization concept, dubbed "GHC" as an abbreviated acronym for Global Household Goods Contract, in part theorized that a single private contractor could improve the experience for families, as well as make the process more efficient, by centralizing and automating aspects of it.
Developing and working out kinks in two digital apps, one belonging to the military and the other to HomeSafe, accounted, at least in part, for a pause in the rollout of the new program that left almost all 2024 permanent change-of-station, or PCS, moves to be conducted under the legacy Defense Personal Property System instead of by HomeSafe, officials said at the time.
Now, HomeSafe has come online at 94 bases in total, according to Transportation Command, which amounts to more than half the bases in the contiguous U.S. The military expects households to request their move through the DoD's MilMove app, then arrange the rest of the details through the contractor's corresponding app, HomeSafe Connect.
The department has consistently pledged access to more streamlined customer service in which representatives would have specific information about the moves.
Members of the industry have been sounding the alarm about potential disruptions to household goods moves for more than a year, since first learning how much HomeSafe intended to pay moving crews and drivers, rates they claimed were so low that to accept them didn't make any business sense.
Many of them -- reportedly more than 1,000 companies and independent contractors in the moving industry -- banded together to form Movers for America to try to attract attention to what they perceived, they said, as issues that could hurt not only their companies but also military households.
Megan Harless, an advocate for relocation reform within the department who has advised Transportation Command as part of a spouse advisory group, said she's communicated with families daily since late December.
"It seems like all are experiencing the same problems," she told Military.com, including "poor communication, no shows on confirmed packing days, and then the packing days are being rescheduled."
She suspected HomeSafe's network of movers is falling short, prompting concern "about the peak season and how extreme these issues will be then."
Transportation Command denied Military.com's request for an interview in November to address the likelihood of problems with the rollout.
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