The Marine Corps believes that lower-ranking enlisted Marines living together is essential to the discipline, unit cohesion, and esprit de corps. Marines in the pay grades of E-4 and E-5 are entitled to a private room. Dormitory rooms are normally subject to two types of inspections: First, there is the normal or periodic inspection—announced or unannounced—in advance. This is where the commander or First Sergeant or other designated person inspects your room to make sure you are abiding by the standards bed made, trash empty, room clean, etc.
The second type of inspection is called a "Health and Welfare Inspection. At times, these HWIs are accompanied by a "random" urinalysis test, looking for evidence of drug abuse.
Some services and bases allow you to use your own furniture. Others are very strict about using the provided Government furniture, only. Even if you are required to use Government furniture, you can have your own stereo, television, or computer system. All in all, most single enlisted people look forward to the day when they can move out of the dormitory.
At most locations, single members can elect to move out of the dormitory and get a place off-base at their own expense. That means the government will not give them BAH Housing Allowance , nor will the government give them a food allowance. Unless you get a roommate or two it can be hard to make ends meet living off base with just your base pay.
The wrinkle is that space is allocated to specific units, and your unit may be overcrowded while others have space available. You could still be stuck on-base, with a roommate. The solution to this problem is to periodically reallocate dormitory spaces, but most bases are reluctant to tackle the project any more often than every five years or so.
This mismanaged system is a source of frustration among single military members. Most places have limited on-base housing, so there is usually a waiting list sometimes, more than one year! To qualify for on-base housing, you must be residing with a dependent in most cases, that means a spouse or minor children. The number of bedrooms you'll be authorized depends on the number and age of the dependents residing with you. Some bases have very, very, nice housing -- on other bases, the housing barely qualifies for slum status.
Utilities trash, water, gas, electric are normally free. Cable TV and phones are not. Furniture is normally not provided although many bases have "loan closets," which will temporarily loan you furniture. Appliances, such as stoves and refrigerators, are usually provided. Many on-base houses even have dishwashers. Clothes washers and dryers are usually not provided, but most units -- at least in the States -- have hookups.
Additionally, many bases have laundromats located close to the housing area. Overseas, many housing units are "Condo-Style," and there is a laundry room with washers and dryers located in each stairwell.
The insides of occupied housing units are not normally inspected as dormitories are. They may be inspected without notice if the commander receives any safety or sanitary problem reports.
The outside of the housing is an entirely different matter. All of the services are pretty strict about dictating exactly how the outside of the house and yard will be maintained. Most of them employ personnel who will drive by each and every housing unit once per week and write tickets for any discrepancies noted.
In the states, most on-base family housing units are duplexes, or sometimes fourplexes. For officers and more senior enlisted members, on-base family housing in the states is usually either duplexes or single dwellings. Sometimes there are fenced-in backyards, and at other bases, there are not. Usually, if the housing unit has a backyard, but no fence, you can get permission to install a fence at your own expense. You have to agree to take the fence down when you move out if the next occupant decides they don't want a fence.
The same is true of almost any improvement you wish to make to on-base family housing. Usually, you can get permission to do self-help improvements, but you must agree to return the house to its original state if the next person to move in doesn't want to accept your improvement.
Overseas, on-base family housing units are generally in the form of high-rise apartment buildings. Moving out of base housing is a lot harder than moving in.
This is the one time when the inside of the house will be inspected, and it will be expected to be in immaculate condition. Many people hire professional cleaners before checkout.
Some bases have programs where the base itself hires professional cleaners when an occupant moves out, making the process much easier. More and more military bases are moving to privatized family housing. This housing is maintained, managed, and sometimes built by private industry. The rent for these privatized units is paid to the housing management agency by military pay allotment and is equal to the member's housing allowance.
Instead of living in the dormitories or residing in on-base housing, you may be authorized to live off-base. In this case, the military will pay you BAH. The amount of this nontaxable allowance is dependent upon your rank, marital dependency status and the area you or your dependents live in.
Once per year, the military hires an independent agency to survey the average housing costs in all of the areas where significant amounts of military personnel live. One of the nice features about the BAH law is that the amount of BAH you receive may never go down while you are living in an area, even if the average cost of housing in that area goes down.
Once you move to a different base, your BAH will be recalculated for the current rate in the new location. An interesting aspect of BAH is the type of housing that the entitlement is based upon. BAH is based on acceptable housing for an individual or an individual with dependents. For example, a married E-5 is reimbursed based on what DoD considers minimum acceptable housing, a two-bedroom townhouse or duplex.
For an O-5 it is a four-bedroom detached home. Another congressionally mandated change eliminated renter's insurance from the BAH calculation.
That means that troops are expected to pay out of pocket for such insurance. Privatized base housing companies also no longer provide that protection as part of on-base rental agreements. Related : See your BAH rates. More details. Military pay benefits are constantly changing.
Make sure you're up-to-date with everything you've earned. Subscribe to Military. Mike Rogers said he and committee Chairman Adam Smith want a sizable increase for enlisted troops as part of next year's Get the latest on pay updates, benefit changes and award-winning military content. Right in your inbox. View more newsletters on our Subscriptions page. Check out the US military pay scale charts for all ranks for active duty, as well as Reserve and Guard components. We tap the local housing office knowledge and gain insights into the concerns of our members.
Current, up-to-date rental information from telephone interviews and the internet is utilized from contacts provided by the local housing offices. Properties are subjected to additional screening and validation processes. What steps do you take to ensure reliability and accuracy of the data?
In selecting specific units to measure, a multi-tiered screening process is employed to ensure that the units and neighborhoods selected are appropriate. Every property to be used is verified by telephone to ensure the correct rent and address are captured.
The property address is mapped to ensure it falls within the boundaries of the housing area being sampled. In order to avoid sampling high-crime or other undesirable neighborhoods, Military Housing Offices MHO have the ability to exclude certain areas from data collection. In areas where the MHO has not identified exclusions, an income screening process, to identify appropriate neighborhoods, is used.
When 1-bedroom apartments junior single enlisted neighborhoods are priced, focus is on where the typical civilian income is consistent with the income level that is typical for these grades. For comparison purposes, civilian salary equals the sum of military basic pay, average BAH, BAS, plus the tax advantage of the untaxed allowances.
What housing costs are used to set BAH rates? BAH rates are computed using current median market rents and average local expenditures on utilities electricity, water, sewer, and heating fuel in each local market area, and will fluctuate as those costs change. How often do you collect housing data? The data is collected annually, in the spring and summer when housing markets are most active. What types of residences do you include in your data collection?
Does family size make a difference? Although BAH distinguishes between with-dependent and without-dependent, the with-dependent compensation is based on comparable civilians using average family size. In determining the income of comparable civilians do you consider military family income which includes the income of the working spouse if any? A military member should not be put into a situation in which a spouse is required to work, so in considering the military, the Regular Military Compensation RMC is used.
BAH is based on civilian standards, considering the housing choices made by civilians of comparable income. Gov't quarters are assigned based on grade and family size. What are the civilian housing standards you use? These are income-based, minimum housing standards used to establish the link between housing cost and pay grade. Of course, members are not limited to the standard, and are free to choose where and how they will live.
Actual member choices, however, do not influence the rate calculation. Why do you base BAH on my duty location? Why not use my residence location? The policy decision to use duty location as a basis for BAH is based on the desire to compensate members for the typical housing cost near the member's duty location. Once the duty station is known, the BAH compensation is fixed, regardless of where the member lives.
Were the member's residence location to be used as a basis for the allowance, there is the concern that this would cause a member to choose the residence location based on BAH. In some cases, this may lead to a member choosing to live further from the duty station, simply to receive higher BAH. The Services decided to base the allowance on the duty location with the full knowledge that members would still be free to live where they choose, but that this decision would not affect the BAH amount.
If people choose to live further away to reduce their housing expense, does that lower BAH for everyone else? Why does someone living in another city get more BAH than I do, when it seems to me that housing is more expensive here? Accurately determining if one location has more expensive rental markets than another is a scientific and statistical exercise. Sometimes, individuals rely on limited personal experience or newspaper and magazine articles to make that judgment.
BAH is designed to address the cost of housing in each area. CONUS COLA is based on grade and dependency status with or without , and specifically considers the availability of commissary, exchange, and hospital facilities, because a member without this infrastructure tends to have a higher cost of living. How do you geographically define a locality? For the purpose of defining the term, "locality," used as the basis for calculating local housing costs, the uniformed services have concurred in aggregating individual zip codes into groups called Military Housing Areas MHAs.
A MHA includes rental markets surrounding a duty station or a metropolitan area. The principal goal of defining an MHA around a duty station is that members ought to receive a BAH sufficient to permit the typical member to live a reasonable distance from his or her duty station.
Of course, each member is free to choose a neighborhood that suits the individual's needs, e. Operationally, an MHA is defined as a collection of zip codes, and its boundaries generally follow county lines.
There are about geographic MHAs in the United States, named for the installation or the nearest city e.
0コメント