New household goods shipment program ramping up this fall

More troops’ household goods will move under a new system aimed at improving service member moves starting next month.

U.S. Transportation Command officials are adding 16 more installations for limited local household goods moves, in addition to the 15 bases where troops’ belongings have been moving locally under the new system since April, officials announced Tuesday.

Officials are also starting some interstate moves at a few locations as they roll out the new Global Household Goods Contract, which privatizes and centralizes household goods shipping under one manager.

As the program keeps ramping up, TRANSCOM expects to include all domestic shipments by next spring. International shipments under the Global Household Goods Contract will start no earlier than September 2025.

TRANSCOM began the effort to improve the moving experience for service members and their families in 2018 after a particularly brutal moving season. It aims to solve longstanding problems such as lost or damaged items, and an onerous claims system.

While just 94 shipments have been completed since April under the new contract, officials are satisfied with the results so far, Andy Dawson, director of the Defense Personal Property Management Office, said in the announcement.

That current sample size is too small to make early conclusions, but the office reports that nearly all of the 27 customers who submitted survey responses after moving their goods under the new contract rated their move experience as satisfied or better.

TRANSCOM awarded the $6.2 billion contract —worth potentially up to $17.9 billion over nine years —to HomeSafe Alliance, a consortium of companies. Work began in early 2023 after contract protests ended.

HomeSafe will be fully responsible for the shipments, bringing accountability to the program from the time a moving company is assigned, through packing, hauling and unloading, to handling any loss or damage claims. As before, the work is done by moving companies, but they sign up to do business with HomeSafe.

If service members qualify to be included in moves within the new system at this point, they will automatically be placed into it.

Some members of the moving industry have warned that HomeSafe is offering lower rates to moving companies under the new system, and that it will affect the quality of service members’ personal property moves, even forcing some companies out of business. TRANSCOM and HomeSafe officials have disputed the amount of rate cuts that have been cited by some industry members.

In an August op-ed, Jack Griffin, chairman and CEO of Atlas World Group, Inc, questioned the need for a sweeping system overhaul, and said the new contract could make the process of moving more strenuous for military families. He said the moving industry has made “significant improvements” in customer service in military moves over the last several years, with better communication and on-time deliveries, and reduction in lost or damaged property.

“There is no backup plan when this risky and unnecessary experiment fails,” Griffin wrote. “Military families will be left to move themselves, taking on the stress and logistical challenges of a change of station on top of all the other demands that come with being a military family.”