"Homesteading"

We all know that "Homesteadin" is likely to be with us from now on. However, I do beleive that there is one aspect of it that we can and should affect.

FamCamps - whether or not they allow residence camping (Homesteading) - should be required by the Base Commander to clean up the place. It absolutely sickens me when I pull into a beautiful place like "San Onofre" on the California Coast, only to find old and delapadated trailers with tons of crap piled up around them. What is up with these people, and why are they allowed to do this? Just for the record, I don't buy the response that "some servicemen have 'grandfathered' sites with residence benefits. I think that is a cop-out for the MWR of the base.

I see Homesteading as fraud toward the government, because 1.Homesteaders don't pay an electric bill, 2. No water bill, 3. now sanitation bill all they pay for is the lot fee and this is definitely setting up residence in a place which is designed to be for the recreational use by soldier families and us retired folks and for a short limit of time. I think the MWR is aware of this but as long as they are receiving money they don't worry about it. RVing is suppose to be recreational not to be a deadbeat and still leeching off the Govt and taking quality time from soldiers with their families looking for a week or two to possibly wanting to rent or bring their own camper to enjoy some time off, but the Homesteaders are taking this time from all of us.

Since it seems the conscientious, is that Homesteading is an unfair, and a self serving practice, what can be done, to bring this to the attention of the right people? It has been said, it is up to the base commanders, but I think their worrying about the RV parks, is low on the list, which is understandable. I think they only know what the MWR, want them to know. It has been mentioned, the MRW, is just happy to have the money come in. We have seen, and many of us have experienced, the lack of spaces being available, at Famcamps. The other problem mentioned, is how some of the homesteaders junk up there sites. I think a lot of information can be gleaned from this site, for instance, the poll on how long an RV is allowed to stay at a park, if I remember correctly, it was a month. I see this problem, and some might agree, as only getting worse. The post war baby boomers, are adding to the amount of retired Rver's. I think the industry as a whole, will notice the increase, especially in the sunbelt, with the new snowbirders. Is there a solution, and how can it come about? There are many people who frequent this site, and I'm sure, enough members of this site, who have been in leadership positions who can offer suggestions, or actually take the steps to do something about it. ??? : ???

I couldn't agree more with "karylkoch". In fact I was just writing a response to this article. Is there someway to pass all this discussion on to MWR or whatever agency that controls the FamCamps and other military campgrounds?

Last year when we were at the Ft. Campbell campgrounds there were several homesteaders there. In fact there was one motorhome that was parked there it had to be a 1952 model something. There was so much s*** around it that it was hard to see the motorhome, also I think the last time it was washed was also in 1952.

It appears that this is a hot button with most of us.

two things have been my experience with gvt entities... one is a "form letter" signed by a number of people holds little water.

The other is: Once when we were "irritated" by the building inspector in a small town where I once lived, a group of builders/contractors got together and each one wrote an individual letter describing in his own words what he thought, and then they all sent them to the Board of Supervisors in one package...

They got action and a new building inspector -- and they had a choice in who that new one was. Later, I had a conversation with one of the supervisors and he said that the reason he (they) took it seriously is because each one wrote separately ... and that the package coming with all the letters together showed him that there was some limited organization -- and that it was not just one guy with a "H-O", getting a bunch of his buddies to initial a "complaint page" ... makes sense too.

I'm not suggesting anyone here do that, just that a collective personal approach gets more action than one "chain letter" ...

When checking-in at Foster Creek I asked the very nice young lady "how long can I stay on site here" and was told as long "as I wanted it". I asked her if she new what "Homesteading" was and she said "yes" and reitterated that as long as the park is not full all the time a user could stay on site as long as they wanted. That lead me to beleave that the rules could be changed at any time by MWR management.