Senior DOD Housing Official Tours On-Post Housing in Japan

One of the Department of Defense's top housing officials recently completed a weeklong, multi-stop tour of homes and barracks at U.S. military installations across Japan.

Patricia Coury, deputy assistant secretary of defense for housing, toured five locations at Camp Zama and Sagamihara Family Housing Area for a firsthand look at the housing options U.S. Army Garrison Japan provides on July 20.

She also visited housing units at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, and Camp Lester and Kadena Air Base on Okinawa before moving on to review housing in Guam.

"I really wanted to take the opportunity to be able to see the conditions that our families and military members are living in overseas," she said. "The [DOD] is very much vested in trying to ensure that we provide very high-quality, safe housing."

Coury said she will take back her findings to her office to determine how the DOD can sustain or improve its housing.

The DOD housing portfolio includes roughly 35,000 government-owned family housing units, 205,000 privatized family housing units, 7,500 privatized unaccompanied apartment bed spaces, and well over 500,000 permanent-party bed spaces, not including those in training barracks, she said.

"It's a huge portfolio," she said, "and it's so important for recruitment and retention of the force."

Army Col. Marcus Hunter, commander of USAG Japan, and garrison housing officials joined Coury on the tour of Camp Zama and SFHA.

He said the visit allowed him to share the great work the garrison housing and maintenance teams do, as well as the challenges they face, to help Coury understand the local housing environment.

"This is an opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate where our resources go," he said, "and how the department's resources are ensuring real high-quality housing, as [best] we can, with the resources that we have available."

To handle the demand for on-post housing, Hunter added the garrison heavily relies on a local-national workforce that provides an incredible amount of experience and continuity.

He said housing is a vital quality-of-life issue that can directly take care of people at all levels and feed an organization's readiness.

"They [won't] have to worry about certain things, as far as their housing goes, and [that] lets them focus on the most important work they have to do, which is their missions," he said.

Coury said she appreciated the candid insight from the weeklong tour, which can help her better inform senior leaders on the way forward.

"We're trying to accelerate and increase our investment in our housing to make sure that we provide the quality living conditions that they deserve," she said of U.S. military members and their families.

As many overseas housing units have been built from the 1970s through the '90s, Coury said it was beneficial to see them in person and discuss how they can either be renovated or replaced, so that the DOD can continue to provide quality housing.

"There's a huge focus on housing overall right now - all the way up to the secretary [of defense] and deputy secretary of defense," she said. "I wanted to be able to see DOD's housing in Japan and share that information as I go back and argue in defense of increased housing investment in DOD's budget."