Help us help you: Complete your housing surveys
11/8/2019
by Kyle Z. Hendrix, Navy Installations Command Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Navy Installations Command (CNIC) leaders call on to the residents and families using Public-Private Venture (PPV) housing to do every survey possible to help the command pinpoint problems and solve them.
“Housing is a significant quality of life priority, and we are actively monitoring how the changes we make impact our residents,” noted Ed Cannon, Director of Fleet and Family Readiness at CNIC.
“We use multiple surveys to get your thoughts on various housing interactions. Your survey responses provide us a metric-driven means to improve the quality of our service,” said Cannon. “I highly encourage all who receive housing surveys to take time and fill them out. Your honest feedback tells us how we are doing.”
Satisfaction surveys are an integral part of the CNIC’s efforts to measure, understand and respond to the needs and concerns of PPV housing residents.
“We read each comment and the trends we identify are crucial in our efforts to support the fleet and provide ever-improving quality of service for our warfighters and families,” Cannon added. “Resident feedback, both positive and negative, is a primary tool we use to determine where the Navy and the PPV partners are getting it right and where we need to focus more attention.”

Four Types of Surveys
Each survey contains tailored questions to provide actionable information on how to enhance the housing program. Residents have the option to take four different types of surveys:
- move-in
- move-out
- work order (after every maintenance action)
- annual resident satisfaction (conducted anonymously by an independent third party)

“In addition to the annual housing satisfaction surveys, it is important for PPV residents to take the spot surveys they receive if they submit a maintenance request, or when they move in or out of PPV housing,” said Ginny Greene, CNIC’s Navy Privatized Housing branch manager. “We, the Navy and our PPV partners, are dedicated to making it as easy as possible for residents to provide feedback and rectify any problems noted.”
The move-in and move-out surveys focus on residents’ experience when entering and leaving the homes. Through these surveys, Service members and families are asked about the initial home and community condition, the inspection and leasing process, the educational material provided, if their questions were answered, and if they encountered any difficulties.
The short work order surveys are focused on an individual maintenance action and help quantify the PPV partners’ timeliness, customer service response, and quality of repair work completed.
The annual resident satisfaction surveys are an anonymous way for residents to provide overarching feedback at how well PPV partners are meeting residents’ expectations. CEL & Associates, an independent third party, administers the annual satisfaction survey on behalf of the Navy PPV partners -- Balfour Beatty, Clark, Hunt, Landmark, Lincoln, and Patrician. The Navy and PPV property managers create detailed corrective action plans based on the results of the annual surveys.
“Survey responses are taken incredibly seriously at all levels of the chain of command,” said Greene. “Resident recommendations help us improve their experience in their individual neighborhood, but can also affect the entire program, so that our larger Navy family can benefit as a whole.”

Initiatives and Improvements
Several of the initiatives recently implemented in PPV housing oversight were a result of feedback through the various surveys. For example, the out-of-cycle survey earlier this year noted the lack of transparency in the maintenance process. As a result, all Navy PPV partners have developed online portals and apps where residents can submit and track maintenance requests. PPV housing residents can learn more about the available apps through their PPV housing managers.
“The call for improvement was heard loud and clear,” said Greg Wright, CNIC Housing Director. “Along with the use of apps and online portals, CNIC has initiated a number of other major actions that might not be as visible as a new app, but are still designed to improve housing quality, responsiveness and customer satisfaction.”

Wright noted some housing initiatives including:
- Development of a central housing electronic data warehouse where Navy leaders can review resident initiated maintenance requests and the work status. Monitoring trends and identifying anomalies allow leaders to take action when and where appropriate.
- Hiring more people at Navy Housing Service Centers and providing more training for government employees, such as the new “Conducting Navy Housing Inspections” course.
- Increased interaction between installation housing program directors, installation commanding officers and PPV property managers to discuss maintenance metrics, open work orders and resolve ongoing issues.
- Focusing on the quality of work in addition to timeliness and allotting more time for a home to be made ready before a resident moves in.
- The installation commanding officer hosting quarterly open-houses or town-halls, where residents can communicate directly with their Navy advocates.

PPV property managers and Navy staff charged with oversight of PPV housing continue to seek resident feedback in any form as a primary source of information to fuel improvements to service, property conditions and overall resident satisfaction.

For more information about Navy Housing, go to www.cnic.navy.mil/ffr/housing.html or visit your Navy Housing Service Center.
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