Closed Military Bases To Be Retrofitted for Homeless Population

The National Alliance to End Homelessness convened on July 14, 2005 in Washington, DC, to discuss how to use the land remaining from Base Closure. Other topics of discussion included: the Senate Appropriations Committee and HUD. Almost 1,000 people attended the meeting that included advocates and a few Senators and Representatives. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty held an audio training series on Legal Strategies to End Homelessness to discuss the Base Closure.

Public hearings are being held in June and July by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) in various US cities. According to Rebecca Troth, Legal Director at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP), there are 180 bases that are planned to close. Of those bases, 33 are large, major bases. It is hoped that the bases can be used to develop permanent housing for the homeless population.

Congress passed the Base Closure Community Redevelopment and Homeless Assistance Act (1994 Base Closure Act) in 1994. The Act governs the disposition of federal property on the bases and requires that the needs of the homeless population are considered by providing a series of regulated actions to be used in disposing the properties.

On Friday, May 13, 2005, The Department of Defense announced the base closures and realignments for 2005. A list of base closures per state is listed on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) web site at:

http://www.brac.gov/docs/AppendixCFinalUpdated.pdf

Apparently, the states with the largest numbers of bases and closures are: Texas, Connecticut, North Carolina, Kentucky, Washington D.C., Georgia and Maryland. Texas has about three times as many bases as other states. No other state approaches Texas with the number of bases. The only other category that has almost as many bases as Texas is the Overseas and Undistributed category of bases, which includes sites in Germany and Korea. Incidentally, there are absolutely no closures overseas. All of the overseas base operations will be realigned, and not closed. After reviewing the list of states, I found that bit of data to be interesting.

For References, visit:
National Alliance to End Homelessness:

http:/www.endhomelessness.org/pub/onlinenews/2005/news07-18.pdf

National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty:

http://www.nlchp.org/FA%5FHousing/SurplusProperty.cfm

National Alliance to End Homelessness; Audio Conference Series: Expanding Service to the Homeless: The “How Tos” of Base Closure: http://www.endhomelessness.org/audio/

http://www.endhomelessness.org/audio/