The Army is pulling some household goods shipments belonging to its personnel out of the military's new privatized system that manages moves due to "contract performance issues," according to the service and the military command overseeing the system.
A memo from the Army Personal Property Lead Element, dated Feb. 28, told transportation offices to "pull back" some Army shipments from the new system, which has been in the works for years and was meant to solve widespread dissatisfaction among military families over permanent change-of-station moves.
As of February, at least 1,000 of the 8,900 shipments initiated under the single company contracted to oversee all Department of Defense moves, HomeSafe Alliance, had experienced problems, according to figures released by U.S. Transportation Command and the company.
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In recent months, service members and transportation offices have begun requesting and managing moves through the department's new MilMove app and the corresponding HomeSafe Connect app.
HomeSafe carried out only localized "test moves" during the 2024 peak moving season and began moving military households between U.S. bases in the fall, adding new bases incrementally.
Military families have reported delays and cancellations of the privately managed household goods shipments, including instances of crews never showing up to pack their belongings, despite receiving confirmation messages, as well as waiting indefinitely to receive their items at their new home, Military.com reported in January.
The PCS moves are a staple of life for troops, families and civilian defense workers. The regular moves are often a long, drawn-out and stressful process -- even without hiccups and disruptions in the pickup, shipment and delivery of all their household belongings.
Transportation Command, which oversees the HomeSafe contract, and the military services have since "noted contract performance issues," the command told Military.com in a statement in reference to the Army's memo.
The command added that the Army memo "outlines additional control measures to mitigate further impacts to service members and their families in the near term."
As of late January, Transportation Command estimated that about 1,000 shipments had been affected by problems such as communication, missed pickups and missed deliveries, but couldn't share more specific performance statistics, citing "the nature of the contract."
HomeSafe announced Feb. 19 that it had completed 1,400 shipments. The DoD provides approximately 400,000 household goods moves each year to service members and their families, amounting to about 15% of all U.S. moves and making the military the industry's largest customer. Most military moves take place in late spring or summer.
The Army's memo said the change affected only its personnel and that the other services had "not made additional determinations on shipment management."
The memo requires transportation offices to book Army moves in the legacy Defense Personal Property System -- the system set to be replaced by the privatized contract -- if the moves don't give HomeSafe at least 21 days of lead time.
The Army offices will also re-book in that old system any moves within the 21-day window that don't already have movers assigned by HomeSafe.
In a statement to Military.com, HomeSafe said it requested a lead time of at least 21 days "in this program's early and developmental stages ... to provide us enough time to book high-quality movers on necessary dates."
The statement said HomeSafe apologized "to every family affected by capacity-related delays, and we are dedicated to providing timely service going forward. HomeSafe is taking all the lessons learned and continually improving our systems and processes, including enhancing our customer care operations, updating our technology platform, reshaping our training program for service providers and hiring additional employees."
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., sent a letter Feb. 26 to Gen. Randall Reed, head of Transportation Command, requesting a briefing on the issues including HomeSafe Alliance's capacity to provide moves, citing reports by his constituents and in the press of issues with moves.
Related: Military Families Report No-Shows, Delays Amid Rollout of New Household Goods Shipment System
