VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia — Freshman Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA) was despondent whenever she saw that the House’s version of the Military Construction, Veteran Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act would slash the funding to fiscal 2022 levels.
Her district is a military-heavy district with five bases, and multiple of those have housing that is in disrepair and unlivable. Specifically, Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, said she had been trying to sound the alarm on just how bad the living conditions in Naval Air Station Oceana are. But with some members adamant to cut spending, her requests for additional funding for the base to fix its housing problem fell by the wayside.
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She described the housing on Oceana as “pitiful,” with only 49% of the unaccompanied sailor housing on the base being livable. Some of the issues were fixable at one point, such as the mold problems, but with it being disregarded for so long and on top of the housing not being built properly, a lot of the houses have become condemned.
The fixes she wants to see to Oceana would have had to have been in the military construction appropriations bill, but like many things, it was left out of the bill as a way to cut spending to appease the hard-line conservative members of the conference.
“I was kicking and screaming and pretty much yelling at people like, ‘Is there anything we can do? Is there an amendment? Is there a floor amendment?’ I’m trying to understand the process of Congress, how to get things done, and we had missed that,” Kiggans said.
They don’t even have the money in the budget to demolish the buildings, she said, so they just sit there in an unlivable condition.
To fix this, she believes Congress needs to “prioritize where we’re spending our money,” and while she recognizes the massive spending problem Congress has, she believes those cuts can come elsewhere and not at the expense of the defense budget and service member well-being.
“I think we need to reprioritize,” she said. “I mean, for me, the defense budget is not enough. It was a 3% increase is what the president asked for from last year, and inflation hovers about 6%. So that’s really a decrease when you do the math.”
Kiggans has made a lane for herself as a defense hawk in the House and someone who wants to prioritize a strong military and the well-being of its personnel. She felt these things weren’t being addressed by the House when it was under Democratic control.
This was one of the reasons she ran for Congress. But she still feels like the needs of service members aren’t being heard, and the problems they’re facing are taking a back seat to other topics.
And while the warfighting concerns are obviously a top priority, she said, more needs to be done about the quality of life for service members and their families.
“I just want to beat my head on a wall about housing. It just frustrates me to no end,” Kiggans said. “At least demolish the buildings when we see these condemned buildings. And they’re bad.”
It’s not just the housing. It’s the amenities, too. The base pool is closed for the season, the gas station doesn’t work, and the baseball field is closed. All these things that make service members and their families’ lives easier have fallen into disrepair.
And when she thinks of her children, all of whom are going into the military, and especially her son, who is in flight school and will one day likely be at Oceana, she wants them to have the amenities and things they need to prepare for any conflict the country might have down the road.
“To think of my son who’s in flight school and his friends who are in flight school, they’re going to one day be here at Oceana,” she said. “They’re going to be training to go to war, and I want them to have all the luxuries that they need to be able to prepare for that mentally prepare their families for that because there’s a real possibility we may have a conflict on our hands in the not too far away future.”
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But for these improvements to be made, it has to be a priority of the House, she said. And it’s not just Oceana, but that’s just the base that hits closest to home.
“We can do better than this. But it’s going to take some funding,” she said. “We need our service members to be proud of the job they do. A lot of the decision whether to stay in and get out is going to be because of the wife. How was their local living conditions? Do they have good housing? Do they have good schools? Are they able to get healthcare for their families? So those are the issues that I am extra focused on because I feel like we’ve neglected that the most.”
