About 2,100 military household goods shipments were delayed during the government shutdown, even though they had been funded to move in late September with fiscal 2025 dollars, according to officials with the Permanent Change of Station Joint Task Force.
That represents about 20% of the approximately 11,000 permanent change of station shipments during that time. The 2,100 shipments do not match the number of service members affected, because there is often more than one shipment associated with each service member’s move.
Meanwhile, the task force, established in May by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has already taken steps to improve the process of moving service members’ household goods, some of which helped address problems during the shutdown.
The task force operations center and call center set up this summer have been “knee deep” in addressing problems during the shutdown, Army Maj. Gen. Lance G. Curtis, the task force commander, told Military Times.
“We were proactive in reaching out to service members that we thought were going to be affected by the shutdown,” he said.
“I think that helped us. Ideally, we would have liked the percentage to be at 0%, but I think it was a good news story that we were able to get ahead of it.”
While officials have not yet conducted a complete analysis of the problem during the shutdown, they say it was largely tied to the furlough of civilian workers in the shipping offices at the start of October, said Marine Corps Lt. Col. John Naughton, now the task force’s liaison officer in the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment.
Task force officials were able to work with the service branches to bring those civilian workers back into work, he said, “and that helped alleviate some of the issues that we were seeing early on in the shutdown.”
Curtis said the task force’s call and operations centers worked with service members to get their moves back on track. They worked with defense and service officials, he said, noting that they also had to follow the rules set by each of the service branches to meet their needs.
“I personally wrote several notes to get involved when we became aware, and got the call center involved in that as well. Some of it I think had to do with getting the right information,” he said.
“That’s one of the powers of the call center, is that we are able to connect people who may be feeling like they’re not getting accurate information, with the authoritative source for that information. … Some were communications problems, and some were problems where we had to get involved with the services to solve it,” Curtis said.
He urges service members and family members who have a problem with their move, including with claims or other issues, to contact the call center at 833-645-6683 (833-MIL-MOVE) or [email protected].
“I’m trying to be the one belly button for people who are frustrated, to help them out,” Curtis said.
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In September, as the peak moving season had wound down, the call center hours were adjusted to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CDT. The call center will start operating 24/7 again on May 7, 2026, in anticipation of the full peak moving season.
Hegseth directed the establishment of the PCS task force to improve how the Defense Department moves service members’ household goods when they are reassigned to a new duty station. Problems were snowballing with the new Global Household Goods Contract, and in June, DOD canceled the contract, worth potentially $18 billion over nine years, citing problems with the performance of HomeSafe Alliance, the contractor.
The task force has also helped resolve service members’ claims related to moves under the HomeSafe contract.
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Improvements in moves
In the six months the task force has been in operation, it has held forums with military families and the moving industry, worked with the services and involved economists to look at the moving industry writ large.
They’ve taken a number of steps to improve the movement of household goods for service members.
For example, Curtis has moved up the time frame for service members to be able to book their shipments before peak season starts — by around April 1, instead of mid-May. One industry source said the mid-May time frame did not give troops and industry enough time to prepare for the peak moving season, creating angst for troops who may have had orders for months and couldn’t book their shipments.
“There’s nothing but goodness for service members in moving that time frame earlier into the spring,” said Dan Bradley, vice president of government and military relations for the International Association of Movers.
The task force has also decided to continue the operations center and the call center, which has been a big hit with service members and families, Curtis said. They will continue their forums with families to hear their concerns. One result of these forums is that officials are addressing improvements in the claims process, Curtis said.
Service members and families have complained about the claims process for years, saying it was too difficult to get resolution when their household goods were damaged or lost.
That call center was specifically directed by Hegseth, Curtis said, and the task force took the concept a step further, putting service members in the call center to take the calls. In a recent spouse and family forum on a virtual call attended by 88 spouses and family members, “they told us that their ability to pick up the phone and call a service member was very refreshing. They told us they wanted us to continue the service member-run call center because they appreciated that,” he said.
Since the call center began in August, it has had 4,700 contacts, and the number continues to grow. Of those 4,700 contacts, 3,300 have been the call center reaching out to service members and spouses to warn them of a potential problem.
The service members and spouses are not expecting that phone call or email.
“A lot of times they’re surprised in a good way, and we’re removing obstacles for the service members,” Curtis said. “The key there, is for the first time we can actually fix the problems, because of the relationship we have with the shipping offices, which I refer to as the units of action,” he said.
With the ability to look at a “common operating picture” of data that includes the shipping offices, they know the rate, tempo and volume of shipments occurring where each of those shipping offices are. This allows them to get ahead of potential problems, he said.
Members of industry have been receptive to Hegseth’s decision to continue the moves under the current system for at least three years, Curtis said.
“I’m able to go to industry and say, ‘We need you as partners for the next three years, and because of that, I want you to build capacity’” of trucks, packers and loaders needed to move household goods, he said.
Bradley said movers are pleased that the way forward focuses on a modernized version of the current program, saying that the last six years brought instability and unpredictability to moving companies, as the U.S. Transportation Command moved toward a contract with a single company to manage all the moves.
Curtis attributes much of what the task force has been able to do to the authorities given them, which were not available to TRANSCOM and other entities previously in charge of managing the movement of troops’ household goods.
Hegseth has given the task force the authority to continue its work until at least next August.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book “A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families.” She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
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