Article - Homesteading

One of the 'reasons' some use for long-term tenants is they don't have enough camping tenants - so, it makes me wonder how they know that if a lot of the sites are taken.

Once we see one that has a lot of long-term and junkie looking sites, we pass it by next time. It's often poorly kept and unattractive when a lot of RV's use it as a home.

It's actually against federal law for long-term stays in military campgrounds.

Anyone ever been to Ft Polk, in LA. Very nice lake, boat docks, great picnic area, but the campground is full of long-term RV's, and so junky we had reserved two nights and stayed only one. Trash all over, dogs running, looked like 'dog-patch' reincarnated.

Same thing happened at McCord AFB. Not only were they homesteading but leaving their dog pen on camp site to reserve while they were away for a week. another parks their 5th wheel , live locally and come visit the site "some" weekends. I thought the military was going to CLEAN THIS UP... I know they did at Nellis and the campground is SOOOO attractive.

I'm with Monkey on this one. That "it keeps the sites rented" excuse is pretty hard to prove. Seems to me that all the CG's that allow this type of long-term residency go downhill pretty quickly. The staff no longer has an incentive to maintain the CG properly and the word gets around pretty quickly that it's full of homesteaders, especially with the internet and sites like this one. Campers like us avoid these places like the plague.

A good example to me is Pointes West Army Resort in Appling, GA. It's run by Fort Gordon and while it's on a nice lake, it's not really near anything else. For years there were a bunch of homesteaders here and a lot of the sites were trashy. The CG stayed empty most of the year, except for the "residents." The CG manager and MWR started putting money back into the place to upgrade the utilities and the grounds, evicted the long term residents, fired some staff members who were too lazy or incompetent, and started enforcing a strict 30 day limit policy. Well, guess what? The reservation system is fair, campers started coming back there, and the CG stays mostly full year around.

There are other examples of Military Campgrounds that made this turnaround... somebody mentioned Nellis AFB and I remember reading on here about Mayport being a homesteaders paradise too. All it seems to take are dedicated management and staff and a determination to change the image of the CG.

I've received a few emails about the article and Homesteading. While I've asked these users to come post their replies in this forum, I thought a couple ideas were worth mentioning.

One person suggested using the base IG to place your complaint about homesteading. The IG is there to help enforce the regulations.

Another person took it a step higher and recommends using the DOD IG. Here's a web form to place a complaint or report of homesteading with the DOD Inspector General:
www.dodig.mil/Hotline/submit_complaint_form_action.cfm

You are right, it would be better if they just followed the regs. Try Mac Dill in the winter. You better have a reservation and it will take two years to get one.

Hey folks, let's keep one thing in mind. Long-term homesteading by folks who are using the campground as their permamnent living facilities (active or retired) is vastly different than active duty families on PCS or TDY ORDERS who are using the government facilities for short-term temporary lodging while they are awaiting permanent housing to become available or staying together as a family unit while on extended TDY. As long as the member goes through the proper procedure of being granted a waiver to the base policy from the cognizant authority, usually the base CO, there should be no animus or concern from the other visitors. The parks are for recreation, no doubt, but as government "lodging" facilities, should also be readily available for use by active duty military families to stay together (which is very rare with many deployments and moves) as much as possible. Strong families make a strong military.