FORT DRUM, NY — The results of two independently-conducted surveys on privatized housing, which the Army released today, showed favorable ratings for Fort Drum’s housing partner, Mountain Community Homes (MCH).
Megan Klosner, MCH project director, said that the fall housing survey results gave MCH an overall satisfaction score of 84.2, or “Very Good,” which is a 1.4 increase from the previous survey published last July.
Residents rated the quality of the leasing services and readiness to solve problems as “outstanding.” Survey responders also indicated they were very satisfied with the quality of maintenance.
“We really want to know what our residents think, so we can continue to strive for excellence in the quality of service we provide,” Klosner said.
“Taking the time to answer the questions in the survey might not seem like a big thing to each individual person, but when you combine them all to get over 700 responses from families telling you what they think – that’s an invaluable amount of information that we can use to develop policies and procedures to shape the future.”
The Army housing press release, which includes links to the total survey results are available at https://www.army.mil/article/2
Art Case, Fort Drum Public Works’ Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) Housing manager, said that an increase in the overall satisfaction score is a credit to MCH’s strong maintenance and customer service teams. He said that another good indicator of their performance was the likelihood of residents renewing their leases.
“This score increased by 3.5 percent, which was the highest increase on the survey,” he said.
Case said that the RCI Housing office coordinates with Mountain Community Homes to schedule inspections whenever families move out of their homes.
“After the MCH team performs the Between Occupancy Maintenance (BOM), we inspect every home before another family moves in,” he said. “The RCI Housing team has five trained home inspectors, who are also trained for mold assessment, to conduct more than 2,000 home inspections each year.”
Case said that RCI Housing is also responsible for 100-percent inspections of all life, health and safety issues that residents have submitted. The RCI Housing customer service manager conducts house calls for more than 5 percent of all completed work orders daily to ask if residents are satisfied with the maintenance.
“The key for the RCI Housing office is continually following up and reaching out to the families to ensure satisfaction,” he said.
Responses to a second survey on unaccompanied housing showed an overall outstanding rating for The Timbers.
Klosner said that the surveys are a good indication about how they are performing, but it is difficult to capture the opinions of the entire resident community. Therefore, opening up all avenues of communication is paramount.
Residents can speak directly with community center staff members, or their resident advisory board representative, or contact MCH representatives through email (wecare@fdmch.com) and Facebook (@fortdrummch). They are also encouraged to submit feedback through the online MCH survey, ICE (Interactive Customer Evaluation) comments.
“We are focused on continuing to improve the resident experience to make Fort Drum Mountain Community Homes a great place to live, work and thrive,” Klosner said. “Feedback from residents through any channel is so important to help shape the communities on Fort Drum.”