Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO evaluated: (1) the Army's justification for the construction of 300 additional family housing units at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; and (2) a 1990 Army Corps of Engineers survey of rental housing in the Fort Campbell area.
GAO found that the: (1) Army did not justify the construction of 300 additional family housing units at Fort Campbell; (2) Army incorrectly estimated the number of married soldiers to arrive as the number of families requiring housing, since its estimates were based on a combination of 2 databases that yielded inconsistent results; (3) Army understated the number of existing and projected private rental units and underestimated the rate of growth in rental units; (4) Army's model for determining housing needs did not allow price to equate the quantity of housing demanded to the quality supplied, possibly indicating a need for housing where none existed; and (5) Corps identified 12,497 rental units in the Fort Campbell area in February 1990, while the 1980 U.S. Census identified at least 17,189 units in the same area, resulting in a 38-percent differential between the 2 surveys.
