A room ashore for nearly every shipboard sailor

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The Navy is committed to getting almost all junior sailors a place to live off their ships while in port by 2010. Some 9,000 sailors E-3 and below, and E-4 with less than four years of service, are now stuck living in the industrial environment where they work.


A room ashore for nearly every shipboard sailor
By Chris Amos - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday May 4, 2008 14:29:02 EDT

Within three years, almost all junior sailors living aboard ships in port will trade their mass berthing, gang heads and daily inspections for two-person barracks rooms with private bathrooms, cable and Wi-Fi.

Those changes mark the final phase of Homeport Ashore, a plan with roots in a 1996 decision to pay housing allowances to single E-6s on sea duty. That trickled down to E-5s and E-4s, and now has been expanded to the more ambitious goal of getting every shipboard sailor a place to stay ashore when his ship is in port.

The program has already made great strides. Four years ago, 24,000 junior enlisted sailors lived on ships, and a generation ago, most enlisted sailors of all ranks called their gray hulls home.

But Navy officials say that giving even the most junior sailor a place to live ashore results in fewer discipline problems, fewer diplomatic incidents caused by sailor misconduct overseas in places such as Japan, and improved retention. The Navy’s top officer told Congress in March that he has accepted the challenge of moving all but 2,100 sailors into barracks by the end of 2010.

“As you know, we are working to move our E-3 and below and E-4 less than four years of service off our ships and provide them with ,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told the House Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on military construction March 11. “At the present time, I have 9,000 sailors who do not have accommodations. By the end of 2010, (that number should fall) to 2,100.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/05/navy_homeportashore_050408w/