Pam and Tes with Matt and Michael at Fort Hills, Fort Knox
Social housing for the elderly
Tom collected me from the central meeting point and we first headed off to a Chamber of Commerce meeting for directors of local businesses in Elizabethtown. They discussed many topics but high on their agenda was work in the community. They are very proud of the close knit community of which they are from and there appeared to be few issues other than the world problem of housing: although this being in the private sector, much like England. House prices slumped; many properties being repossessed by banks and lenders which forces what we know as auctions.
After this meeting, Tom took me for a tour of the district which only had one social housing project: a welfare state block of apartments for the elderly; other than that E'town does not have much provision for state run properties.
State run properties seem to be few and far between in this area of Kentucky, although this may differ as we move around the state.
Tom did take me around the private rental sector, which there is an abundance of properties in comparrison to welfare: although most people are still owner occupiers in this part of the America.
Fort Knox housing
Host: Michael Parker
Both Tes and I were very fortunate to be able to visit Fort Knox and meet with Matt & Jennifer, who are key players in the rental properties that Fort Knox offers to soldiers and their families.
Fort Hills is the public / private residential military housing community located at Fort Knox. This venture is a partnership between Actus Lend Lease and the U.S army and is part of the Military Housing Privatisation Act. The property management side of Knox Hills consists of 30 property management staff and 95 maintainence workers. Operations began in December 2006. KNox Hills has an initial development period of 8 years. During this period KNox Hills will construct 850 new homes, demolish 1321 exisiting, older homes and renovate 1376 homes. KNox Hills will manage and maintain 2527 homes for a minimum of 50 years with the option of extending the term an additional 25 years.
We first sat and held discussions and comparisons about housing within the UK & USA. Jennifer collects rent arrears at Fort Knox, however this seems to be a relatively easy approach, as soldiers are required to set up a payment direct from their bank account to pay rent. Rentals at Fort Knox are anything between $823 to £1370 per calendar month. These payments are collected 2 weekly from a soldiers account, if they have insuffiecient funds in their account, they are "chased up" within 2 weeks by Jennifer, verbally by visit to their property or a call to them. Should this not be settled within the month, then the soldier will have "rank" pulled on them and this will be brought to the attention of the soldiers commanding officer, this immediately recifies the arrears problem. Payment agreements can be set up.
Interseingly, anti social behaviour is a problem with soldiers and thier families, although this does seem to be more problematic in the area of children being noisy and writing graffitti on walls. The way that these issues are dealt with is completely by the Fort Know Law Department, where Actus Lend Lease will bring the issues to the local law enforcers attention. The housing company has no dealings with the ASB.
Pam
No comments:
Post a Comment