Fighting for Better Military Housing: Melissa Godoy's Advocacy Journey

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warriors fall in it's time for formation.

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So today's guest I actually met her on tiktok live.

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I tuned in and paid attention for a few minutes and quickly realized I need to get this lady on my podcast, mainly because she was doing such a great job with answering so many questions.

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And today I have the honor of speaking with Melissa Godoy, a dedicated advocate for improved military living conditions since 2019.

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Through her active presence on platforms like Instagram, facebook and TikTok, melissa has been a vocal supporter of military families, helping to shed light on the challenges many military families face today, and she's been working tirelessly to help advocate for a lot of changes for our military community.

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So, melissa, thank you for joining me.

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Hi, thank you for having me.

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Quite the honor and I am so happy that you are on the West Coast, because it's a struggle sometimes to fight that three-hour difference between the west and the east coast, and it doesn't sound like a lot, yeah, but uh, you know, I'm sure the world runs off the east coast, so it's uh, it's great to join you this on this wonderful friday evening.

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Thank you so, melissa, I just want to start off and ask you you know what inspired you to get started overall in advocating for the betterment of military living conditions?

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To long story short because I could give you the longer version, but for time's sake, the shorter version we'll have to do.

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We lived in, you know, my husband's active duty and we lived in military housing for years, you know, for years and years and years.

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And it wasn't up until we moved to JBLM that we saw what other families were going through.

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You know, I heard snippets here and there, but it just seems so outlandish to even consider that the housing, you know, could be unlivable or moldy or some of the other rumors that I was hearing, you know, within the military community, and it was just so unbelievable and I was so naive I just was like, well, that would just, it can't be that bad.

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And then we moved to joint base Lewis-McChord and we experienced that you know, we experienced the neglect from the military housing company, their complete disregard for our well, you know, our well-being and our safety, concerning all the complaints we had.

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And we ended up getting, you know, we lived in that house for pretty much exactly a year and that year, you know, for lack of better words, that year was hell and I ended up getting us displaced and while I was in the hotel, man that just lit a fire, I got to see and experience all of the injustice that so many families were talking about and so many other families were experiencing at that time in Joint Base Lewis-McChord and I just I felt like I just struggling for that one whole year in the housing, with endless complaints, endless maintenance issues getting ignored, and at the same time, you know, my husband is selflessly serving his country and we're just forking over all this money to be treated that way.

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And so that just lit a fire and I thought I have to do something.

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So I started these social medias and it started out as Lincoln Military Housing Toxic Homes, and then that turned into Military Housing Slumlords, and then that turned into military housing slumlords, and then that turned into military living conditions.

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Do you remember what were some of the top issues?

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Were there any major health issues?

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That was wrong with the military housing.

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There was just a lot of things wrong all at the same time.

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There was massive, just I think the biggest issue is ventilation.

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When you have poor ventilation, that leads to mold growth and poor ventilation, no AC, nasty water, rodent and bug infestations Just little things here and there falling apart.

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Poor maintenance response, slow maintenance response.

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I remember we had a leak underneath our kitchen sink and there was water slowly pooling from underneath the kitchen sink and I kept wiping it and I thought, wow, that's a big deal.

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There's water, you know.

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And I called the maintenance line and I said, hey, we have an active leak and someone didn't show up to our house until 24 hours later.

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Wow.

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And you know what's interesting about all this is, my father was stationed at Schofield Barracks back in 1990.

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And I remember as a kid looking at the base housing, thinking, wow, this base housing is old.

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Fast forward to 2003, 2004,.

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I get stationed at Schofield Barracks as a you know, as a brand new commissioned officer and it was the same housing that I thought in 1990 looked old.

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And here we are in 2023, 2024.

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And it was the same housing and I'm like, wow, this is like super.

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This is the same housing that we had back when I was 10 years old, living here on this base.

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It hasn't changed at all.

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I do remember like a lot of what you're saying, where, like trees were growing like into the house, there was like green, like moss on the actual houses on the windows and I thought who would live here?

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And it was one of my decisions when I got stationed at Schofield Barracks to not live on base.

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But shortly thereafter they did update the housing there on the base, but it was never to a decent quality standard of something I would want to live in.

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So I had the option to live off base.

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But those are conditions that are very substandard and should never be offered to, especially folks that are serving our country Like I know that a lot of times you know those contracts go out and it's the lowest bidder, I guess sometimes, and that's still no excuse.

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Overall, in your advocacy efforts, can you highlight some of the most pressing issues military families encounter regarding their living conditions?

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Is there anything else besides what you mentioned with the ventilation and the slow maintenance that you also can highlight?

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Oh gosh, there's contaminated water, gas leaks, asbestos, lead, what else?

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I think the biggest issue is the mold.

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There's families that literally have mold growing all over their house, on their belongings, on their clothing, their bedding, their furniture, having to throw out, you know, couches and beds and bags of clothes and toys, a lot of health issues, breathing issues.

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They're just handing out albuterol inhalers, just handing them out.

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So many families we had albuterol inhalers by the time we left housing.

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And there's families living in condemned homes, homes that were condemned and then they would turn around and put families back in and that's it, and it's not just isolated to family housing, the unaccompanied housing.

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Unaccompanied, you know, the for the single soldiers.

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They're experiencing so worse issues If you could even believe that, and they're not even allowed to complain about it.

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They don't have, you know, spouses like me to advocate for them.

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They're, they're in those barracks and they're stuck in there and they can't complain and their complaints are ignored.

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You know, I'm sure there are very responsive, caring commands out there that are just beside themselves with with.

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They don't know what to do, you know.

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And then they go to DPW, the director of public works say, hey, you know, these leaders are like hey, I got soldiers in here living in a moldy building, what can we do?

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And they get ignored.

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So there's multiple levels of negligence happening and it starts from the top down.

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You know, through through my advocacy you know I've kind of learned what the bigger picture is.

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And everything starts and ends with Congress.

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Yeah.

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Congress, they're the ones that allocate the funds.

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They're the ones you know.

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Senate Armed Service Committee they're the ones that allocate the funds.

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They're the ones that you know call all the shots for our military service members and our complaints are falling on deaf ears.

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I've been complaining to the Senate Armed Service Committee since the beginning, continuously send them emails and speak to them and have meetings, and they're like yeah, yeah, we hear you, we hear you.

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So this is happening, this is happening, and all they do is contact the command and and and it just it's like an endless cycle.

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Yeah, it's a.

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It's a lot of inefficiency and a lot of like a lot of nothing happening.

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Because I, even when I was enlisted, I went to my advanced individual training and we had a temporary set of barracks that we stayed in prior to us starting our AIT training and during my time there I remember like sleeping on the bunks and looking at how disgusting they were, very unclean, like I ended up getting bronchitis staying in those barracks and I spent the next like nine weeks just coughing out my lungs and then you go to sick call and they just told me to drink water and run it off and that's all you really can do when you have bronchitis.

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But you get that.

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You get bronchitis from usually from like poor living, like like unsanitary living conditions, and I know that that's what happened.

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Was that staying in those barracks?

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I I remember distinctly how, how dirty they were and they were very disgusting and there wasn't a whole lot for us to do to clean them up because it was so bad.

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Yeah.

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I just want to ask you overall, you know, since you started your advocacy and the platforms that you're using Instagram, facebook, tiktok how has that aided in your overall efforts to advocate for the betterment of our military community?

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all efforts to advocate for the betterment of our military community.

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Well, I thought, since Congress you know there's a slow response with Congress what I wanted to do is get the word out.

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The general public, you know, and there was a time in my life I was the general public, I was not military affiliated, I was not married to anyone in the military and I thought that the military was a prestigious organization and it still is.

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But there were a lot of things that they don't talk about and housing you know the defect, and the medical care.

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There were things that they just don't talk about and they don't put out in the media.

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I never saw headlines reflecting such living conditions related to the military, never read anything in the news or saw anything in the news that had to do with poor living conditions.

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So it was very unheard of, it was a very hush-hush subject.

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So I thought, wow, the general public needs to know about this.

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Because of the general public.

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It's kind of I mean it's, you know putting.

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Because of the general public, it's kind of I mean it, you know putting, putting them in the spotlight, putting, you know, bad publicity.

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It's kind of obnoxious, but you know what it works putting, putting bad publicity about them saying hey, you know, if people don't know about this, I'm gonna tell them'm going to let them know.

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So I joined as many platforms as I could and just started putting content out there and families.

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Up to today, I've probably talked to thousands of service members and their family members married service members, single service members and they would tell me stories about their living conditions, their defects, their medical malpractice, sending me thousands of pictures of their living conditions just full of mold and bugs and all this stuff.

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And I thought, wow, the general public definitely needs to see this.

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And that has created, that has caused quite a stir with the powers that be that, hey, we, we can't be letting people know that you know we're not taking care of our service members.

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So that kind of generated a response and a domino effect.

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You know, when some of my tick talks went viral with over a million views, I was getting contacted by different DPW workers, different leaders, and it generated that response that I wanted.

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If you're not going to pay attention to me and these issues, I'm going to make you.

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Right, yeah, and those social media platforms have a way of doing that in today's world, in 2025.

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And it's great that folks like you are fighting for that advocacy, because the one thing that I've learned over the years is you know, I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004, 2005.

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They say less than like 5% served in that war.

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5% of the US population say less than like 5% served in that war.

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5% of the US population.

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It bothers me now when I ask folks about things that I feel like they should know something about.

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So when I ask about stop loss, the majority of Americans don't know what that is.

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And it bothers me because I'm thinking to myself why and a lot of it has to do with the fact that less than 5% of the population I think 6% of the population ever served, and then less than that even served during wartime.

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So why would anyone care?

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So you've got 95% of the American population walking around.

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It's not in their backyard, it's not in their purview, so why do they care?

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And so what you're talking about is you're talking about living conditions.

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So less than five to 6% of the US population.

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They don't live in barracks, They've never experienced military housing, so why would they care?

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So unless you're out there doing what you're doing and talking about it, they would never ever know.

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And just overall, like in your efforts so far since you began your journey in being an advocate, you kind of led into it a little bit, but what changes or improvements have you witnessed so far with your advocacy overall with military housing?

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Well, when we first got displaced in 2019, I heard about the Tenants' Bill of Rights and I think they were just generating, they were just starting the talks about the Tenants Bill of Rights, but I was still in the middle of my housing issues and it just seemed hopeless to me and I didn't respond to those emails.

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I thought, wow, I felt like it was just a hopeless situation.

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I thought, wow, I felt like it was just a hopeless situation.

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But as I started, when I created a wave of displacements and I went all over the news and JBLM and just started displacing families myself, like hey, this family is living in mold, and I displaced over 30 families myself in a span of two weeks, over 30 families myself in a span of two weeks.

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Now, and I don't want to say specifically my actions, because there are dozens of other advocates out there that are, you know, going to the Hill and they're doing a lot of legislative work and I'd like to think that I'm just a drop in the bucket you know what I mean and that we're all working together towards the same thing and we're all doing something towards and working towards that goal.

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But I know, in JBL, families were getting displaced, people's homes were getting worked on.

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Families that were fighting to leave their house because of the living conditions got to leave their house and break their lease.

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But now, you know, with a combined effort of a lot of advocates and a lot of moving parts, we now have the tenants bill of rights.

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Tenants can withhold bh, even though a lot of this is very inconsistent there is no checks and balances, there is no enforcement but it is still there.

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There's still a lot of improvements that need to be made, but at least when we were in housing, we didn't have anything.

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I complained and I was literally told if you don't like it, you can leave.

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We weren't told hey, you have a military housing advocate.

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Hey, you have the Tenant's Bill of Rights.

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Hey, you can go to your residential communities initiative rep.

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You can go talk to this person or this person it was.

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If you don't like it, you can go to your residential communities initiative rep.

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You can go talk to this person or this person it was.

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If you don't like it, you can leave.

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So, through a combined effort of so many advocates and I'd like to think I'm included in that group there are now resources changes happening and even as far as the barracks.

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Changes were happening there as well.

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I've helped fix AC units in barracks.

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I've helped fix certain things in barracks.

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Somebody came to me with an issue with their AC unit and their defect and I just sent an inquiry to the Senate Armed Service Committee and said, hey, this defect they're blah, blah, blah, they need their ACE.

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And the soldier got back to me the next day and said somebody came over and fixed it.

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So that's kind of what I did.

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I would just send inquiries and just be that constant voice, that constant reminder, like hey, I was that checks and balances, because there is none, there is not a team of people chasing everybody around the military and in the Senate Armed Service Committee reminding them that they have service members that need help.

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And it's not just me, there are so many other advocates that are helping and posting about it and getting attention on it.

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So the changes are happening, not as fast as we want them to happen, of dollars they don't have.

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So I'm satisfied with any kind of change, no matter how small it is.

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Right, yeah, it's all about holding them accountable, and folks like you are doing just that, doing your part to try to hold them accountable for making conditions bearable and livable and within standard.

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And just for folks out there that don't know, we've been talking about it, but JBLM stands for what?

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And then also too, can you walk me through the process of when a military service member shows up to a base?

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I know it goes off of rank two from what I understand, but how does that work?

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As far as whether or not you go in the barracks or you live on base or you live off base, do folks have options?

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Well, it depends on the installation, it depends on the state, it depends on how big the installation is.

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I know the bigger installations like Fort Cavazos and Fort Liberty.

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You know the couple installations in Georgia.

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Then Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the bigger installations tenants have a hard time getting into housing.

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There's long wait lists.

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People are living in RVs and living in hotels and stuff and it also depends on the cost of living that.

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So it varies close to three grand a month and that exceeds, you know.

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And then you're talking about gas prices, you're talking about utilities, you're talking about all the extra expenses that come with living off post.

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So it all depends.

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You know where they're living, what the cost of living is in that state.

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I know a lot of families here in Joint Base Lewis-McChord are struggling to live, you know, especially for you know the junior enlisted E1 to E4, and you know they don't make a lot of money.

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And so when you have rents that are $2,500 and up and a lot of them have, you know they need like a three or four or five bedroom house because they have large families the rent is just unaffordable.

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And of course there comes spouse unemployment and when you move to a new installation, spouses don't have that extra income to put on that rental application.

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So now you're basing everything off of that one income, which most of the time will disqualify you from even renting, because now you need three times the rent amount to rent.

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You need, you know, back, you need you need a credit check, and a lot of these young families, they don't have credit.

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So it's just so many things stacking against these families and so many things that they encounter.

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And a lot of families are one one vehicle families.

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They only have one vehicle.

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So that makes spouse unemployment even harder.

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You know, spouse employment even harder to obtain when you have a young family and they have kids and then one vehicle and it's just a never ending just piling it on these families and before you know it they're forced to live on posts where they're encountering all those housing issues.

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Right, and one of the things that you didn't mention that I remember being a military brat myself was the schools.

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So if you live off base and your kids go to a school that may not have a whole lot of military families there, it's a huge difference when you move every four years and you go to a new school.

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Some schools are geared towards those types of kids that literally just moved in.

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You've got other kids there that are not of that state Hawaii, for example, where my dad was stationed there.

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I originally was from there and we lived far off base.

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The school that I went to was not really geared towards kids that move every four years which made education a little bit harder too, whereas, like, the schools that are closer to the base have teachers with that type of I guess, understanding and that type of education towards helping kids find that gel a little bit better into the learning atmosphere.

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I think that can be a real challenge sometimes to get that assimilation.

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When you're in a new class you've got new teachers every four years you're moving.

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The schools, from what I've seen, that are closer to the base are a little bit more geared towards kids that transition like that, versus the ones that are far away.

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So you didn't even mention that part.

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But like that is again something else that stacks against all that stuff.

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Yeah.

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But overall, you know over time, since you're, you know, on this journey of advocating for military service members, have you partnered with any other organizations or individuals, any collaborations to help further your cause and, if you have, can you share some of those experiences?

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Well, when I first started, it became kind of a research.

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I wanted to learn everything there was to know about military housing and the contracts and what other people were experiencing.

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I wanted to talk to other advocates.

00:23:47.878 --> 00:23:56.246
You know, other advocates reached out to me and shared some resources and I just started asking all the right questions.

00:23:56.246 --> 00:24:17.535
I wanted to know who, what, when, why, where, how, and it just it turned into like a self self-driven research and it just it turned into like a self-driven research and I encountered a lot of advocates along the way that were able to give me some resources that I have now.

00:24:17.535 --> 00:24:20.663
Part of it was just learning, learning who to go to.

00:24:20.663 --> 00:24:31.236
People started reaching out to me and it was a lot of trial and error.

00:24:31.236 --> 00:24:33.200
I never ran social medias before, so I made a lot of mistakes.

00:24:33.200 --> 00:24:36.046
I learned, I grew from those mistakes.

00:24:36.046 --> 00:24:43.227
I started learning how to handle a crowd of people and learn to interact with a crowd of people.

00:24:43.227 --> 00:24:49.406
So when you run these social medias, you know you're you're dealing with the public and different walks of life.

00:24:49.827 --> 00:24:50.067
Right.

00:24:51.496 --> 00:24:58.382
And before I knew it, you know, people like you started reaching out to me like, hey, you know my posts would go viral.

00:24:58.382 --> 00:25:05.153
Or you know, word of mouth and slowly, and you know, and I stayed consistent, that's the biggest thing.

00:25:05.153 --> 00:25:05.667
A lot of these advocates, you know they get.

00:25:05.667 --> 00:25:06.126
I stayed consistent.

00:25:06.126 --> 00:25:06.377
That's the biggest thing.

00:25:06.377 --> 00:25:09.849
A lot of these advocates, you know, they get burnt out and it's easy to get burnt out.

00:25:09.849 --> 00:25:13.155
It's it's never ending.

00:25:13.155 --> 00:25:28.469
But I, I was so committed to the cause because what happened to us was real and it was serious and I knew how how bad it was that I just stayed consistent and that's the biggest thing was consistency.

00:25:28.469 --> 00:25:34.752
People think like, oh, I'm going to start a social media and I'm just going to get thousands of followers overnight.

00:25:34.752 --> 00:25:41.855
I remember my Instagram had like 40 followers for like six months, but I just stayed consistent.

00:25:42.076 --> 00:25:46.007
I knew in my heart that this needed attention and I didn't care.

00:25:46.007 --> 00:25:47.801
I didn't care if anyone followed me.

00:25:47.801 --> 00:25:52.026
I knew I had to put this stuff out on social media and people needed to see it.

00:25:52.026 --> 00:25:57.207
And before I knew it, people started reaching out and podcasters started reaching out.

00:25:57.207 --> 00:25:59.242
Other pages started reaching out.

00:25:59.242 --> 00:26:12.064
Leaders, you know, senior NCOs, housing officials, even senators, their, their secretaries, were reaching out like actual senators and governors.

00:26:12.064 --> 00:26:20.137
There, you know, people were like oh I'm, I'm in the office of Senator blah blah blah and I saw your social media and I wanted to know if you had some time to talk with me.

00:26:20.137 --> 00:26:34.326
So, um, it was just, uh, really, I, I really had to depend on a lot of those advocates and they really extended their arms and said hey, welcome aboard.

00:26:34.487 --> 00:26:47.603
Yeah, trust me, I know the ups and downs of doing this and having to learn social media and spending like 45 minutes doing like a video or something like that and then just completely trashing it and having to start over again.

00:26:47.603 --> 00:26:51.316
Yeah times where I did podcasts, where I forgot to hit record.

00:26:51.958 --> 00:26:52.799
Oh my gosh.

00:26:52.819 --> 00:26:54.242
Thankfully, today I didn't do that.

00:26:54.242 --> 00:26:58.181
But, like when I first started, I was so frustrated and I was like you know, why am I doing this?

00:26:58.181 --> 00:26:59.305
I'm wasting so much time?

00:26:59.305 --> 00:27:03.059
But you know, at the end of the day, something like this is very soul fulfilling.

00:27:03.059 --> 00:27:11.959
So I'm so thankful that the algorithm brought me to you because, trust me, I do know from my own personal experiences how bad the living conditions can be on some of these bases.

00:27:11.959 --> 00:27:22.887
But overall, is there a personal story or experience that you can think of that deeply influenced you and helped with your commitment to this cause?

00:27:25.185 --> 00:27:33.940
and helped with your commitment to this cause, just hearing everyone's stories and hearing how hopeless and helpless families felt and knowing and seeing.

00:27:33.940 --> 00:27:40.659
You know my own husband, who has been serving this year for 20 years and retiring this fall.

00:27:40.659 --> 00:27:51.403
You know, knowing how much our service members sacrifice every day and being away from home long hours and sacrificing their mental health.

00:27:51.403 --> 00:27:59.734
You know, going on my my husband went on four combat tours and you know he's been blown up and shot at and saw things that he never wants to talk about.

00:27:59.734 --> 00:28:27.196
And then him coming home and experiencing those things by these contractors who are literally stealing their money, and knowing how much each and every service member all 4 million of them right now serving active duty today are sacrificing and knowing how much, how they're getting taken advantage of getting taken advantage of.

00:28:27.217 --> 00:28:31.412
Yeah, when you're going downrange and you're deploying, the last thing you should worry about is the roof over your head for your family.

00:28:31.412 --> 00:28:32.315
That should be a no-brainer.

00:28:32.315 --> 00:28:33.376
That should be taken care of.

00:28:33.376 --> 00:28:51.587
So you're 1000% right and as a former military leader myself, I know how pressing it can be when you're serving in war, serving in combat, and then you're reaching back home and hearing about these things that are happening to your family and I've had to deal with it.

00:28:51.587 --> 00:28:55.625
When I was a platoon leader, when I was in Iraq, there was times where I'd have to.

00:28:55.625 --> 00:28:59.605
I would hear from the soldiers oh, this is happening, that's happening back home.

00:28:59.605 --> 00:29:11.263
And here we are trying to focus on the mission, trying to stay alive, trying to maintain our survivability, and we're having to look back and handle stuff in garrison.

00:29:11.263 --> 00:29:13.108
That really should not even be.

00:29:13.108 --> 00:29:16.778
It should be a no-brainer, it should already be taken care of.

00:29:17.279 --> 00:29:29.428
Yeah, when we got displaced, my husband, literally the day before, flew to Fort Cavazos Back then it was Fort Hood, so he was in Fort Hood, supposed to be there for a month training.

00:29:29.428 --> 00:29:42.198
And the very next day we get displaced and I don't want to tell him because I'm already a decade into this marriage and I know he can't just fly home.

00:29:42.198 --> 00:29:45.501
It would just stress him out, it would ruin his training.

00:29:45.501 --> 00:29:47.123
So I didn't tell him.

00:29:47.123 --> 00:29:53.891
We were in the hotel for a week before I told him and that's a funny story in itself.

00:29:53.891 --> 00:30:06.778
But yeah, he was training and he finally, after finding out that we were in a hotel and I was displacing people and just raising all kinds of shenanigans, his commander was like man, we got to send them home.

00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.337
We were in the hotel for a month and he had to be sent home three weeks into his training.

00:30:12.337 --> 00:30:14.743
So, yeah, it disrupted his training.

00:30:14.743 --> 00:30:38.682
And I know families, spouses, their service members deployed, and then they get displaced and they don't know what to do and you guys don't want to call yeah, you're right, you don't want to call home and then find out that your spouse or your family member is experiencing all this stuff and then you're continuously forking over all this BAH just to experience all this.

00:30:38.682 --> 00:30:40.707
It's an absolute injustice.

00:30:41.775 --> 00:30:43.160
When you got displaced.

00:30:43.160 --> 00:30:44.284
What exactly happened?

00:31:07.714 --> 00:31:08.678
When you got displaced, what exactly happened?

00:31:08.678 --> 00:31:11.145
Happy in my own little world, but after so many months of just being ignored, I called the housing company.

00:31:11.145 --> 00:31:12.269
Well, I'm sitting there thinking why are we sick?

00:31:12.269 --> 00:31:13.452
My lungs are full of fluid.

00:31:13.452 --> 00:31:16.540
My daughter sounds like Darth Vader she was three at the time.

00:31:16.540 --> 00:31:18.747
You could hear fluid exchange in her lungs.

00:31:18.994 --> 00:31:21.721
Months of rashes and headaches, and I couldn't eat.

00:31:21.721 --> 00:31:23.865
I didn't eat a full meal for four months.

00:31:23.865 --> 00:31:31.904
I lost 17 pounds and I knew there was something in that house making us sick, but I just didn't know what.

00:31:31.904 --> 00:31:38.066
I've never lived in a house that made me sick and we were in and out of the hospital for a year.

00:31:38.066 --> 00:31:50.864
Medical records show us going to the ERs and urgent cares at least every two to three weeks with breathing issues and just all kinds of stuff digestive issues and I just knew it was the house.

00:31:50.943 --> 00:31:52.026
But where, how?

00:31:52.026 --> 00:31:53.067
What do I look for?

00:31:53.067 --> 00:32:03.626
So I'm sitting there at the edge of my bed and right in front of me was the master bathroom and the master bathroom door and I'm just sitting there like completely helpless.

00:32:03.626 --> 00:32:25.468
My husband is gone, I'm sick, I don't know what's going on and my eyes just kind of trail to the floor, to there's a, there's a wall and then the door is right here and I look down at the bottom of the wall and I always noticed that that corner was always dark and I thought, is that the shadow or is that the wall that's dark?

00:32:25.468 --> 00:32:31.560
And I noticed I saw like little lines like this right above the wall trim.

00:32:31.560 --> 00:32:37.580
There's that piece of trim right along the carpet and I saw like dark shading, just uneven.

00:32:37.580 --> 00:32:42.616
So I'm just staring at it and I'm like that looks really, really weird.

00:32:42.616 --> 00:32:50.821
So I got down and I I kind of picked at it with my finger and I picked off a huge chunk like the wall.

00:32:50.821 --> 00:32:55.839
The paint just chipped right off and then I saw all this black stuff in it.

00:32:55.839 --> 00:33:03.079
And then I looked alongside the wall and that black stuff was just thicker along the trim.

00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:12.604
And so I got a screwdriver and a pry bar and I just pried off that trim very carefully because I knew I would have to put it back.

00:33:12.604 --> 00:33:18.705
So I gently pried it off and that does mold all underneath that trim.

00:33:19.367 --> 00:33:35.181
So then I followed that wall around into the bathroom and just days prior maintenance came over, because I was in the bathroom and just days prior maintenance came over Cause I, you know, I was in the bathroom and I saw a piece of trim by the, by the shower that had mildew on it and I was like, wow, there's something going on.

00:33:35.181 --> 00:33:37.186
And I was naive and I was just like whatever.

00:33:37.186 --> 00:33:41.736
So I called maintenance and I showed them and I was like I think it might've gotten water damage on it.

00:33:41.736 --> 00:33:46.082
So then they were in there for about 15 minutes and they came back out and said you're fine.

00:33:46.082 --> 00:33:49.788
So I went in there and it looked like he had painted.

00:33:49.788 --> 00:33:51.170
Well, it looked white.

00:33:51.170 --> 00:33:54.122
I was like, oh, okay, he must've replaced it.

00:33:54.122 --> 00:33:54.884
That's awesome.

00:33:54.884 --> 00:34:04.970
Well, a couple of days later, which was the day before we were displaced, I looked at that same piece of trim and I saw brown stuff and I thought I thought he just replaced that.

00:34:04.970 --> 00:34:06.536
No, he had painted over it.

00:34:06.757 --> 00:34:14.938
So then, as you know, fast forward to when I'm inspecting and I go around and I'm like, wait a minute, let me look at that piece of trim.

00:34:14.938 --> 00:34:19.349
So I pried it off and the wall was just non-existent.

00:34:19.349 --> 00:34:25.324
The drywall was just crumbling and you could see right through the wall.

00:34:25.324 --> 00:34:27.809
You could see the metal lining pieces.

00:34:27.809 --> 00:34:33.288
It was a nightmare and I just kept prying off wall and at that point I didn't care.

00:34:33.288 --> 00:34:35.960
I just took the pry bar.

00:34:36.059 --> 00:34:47.831
I took the, the whatever, the crowbar and I just stabbed it into the wall and pulled it out and exposed inside the wall and it was just black, black mold.

00:34:47.831 --> 00:34:56.168
And then we also noticed that I would get black spots all over my carpet and I thought, wow, are we dirty people?

00:34:56.168 --> 00:35:06.606
And, thinking back on it, we had mold literally growing on our carpet and I would sit there and shampoo my carpet because I'm thinking, wow, we must be wearing our shoes.

00:35:06.606 --> 00:35:07.367
So I was strict.

00:35:07.367 --> 00:35:09.704
I was like you guys cannot wear your shoes in the house anymore.

00:35:09.704 --> 00:35:11.141
I'm tired of cleaning this carpet.

00:35:11.141 --> 00:35:16.045
But it wasn't dirt, it was mold growing on the carpet.

00:35:16.045 --> 00:35:19.965
I could see just black spot all over.

00:35:20.996 --> 00:35:23.920
That's so unacceptable and so scary, but what you're saying is so true.

00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:39.601
That's so unacceptable and so scary, but what you're saying is so true and I can tell you from my own experiences and I'm sure folks that are going to be listening to this can also tell you some good horror stories.

00:35:39.601 --> 00:35:41.043
This has been a problem that's been going on for decades.

00:35:41.043 --> 00:35:41.525
This isn't new.

00:35:41.525 --> 00:35:47.699
To report this, further than your your command to where you can get other folks to listen and actually make a difference.

00:35:47.699 --> 00:36:00.164
So you know, god bless people like you who are taking the time to expose this, because black mold should not be something that I mean that'd be the last thing on my mind for sure and but that's so dangerous in general.

00:36:00.164 --> 00:36:02.007
Just even be living in those conditions.

00:36:02.795 --> 00:36:02.896
Yeah.

00:36:02.976 --> 00:36:05.427
So you know, wow, that's that's.

00:36:05.427 --> 00:36:10.543
That's a crazy story and I'm glad that you were able to find find the problem.

00:36:10.543 --> 00:36:20.802
But how many people out there you know don't find the problem and live like that for the entirety of their so many you'd be, surprised so many.

00:36:20.802 --> 00:36:22.347
And the health issues right.

00:36:22.795 --> 00:36:23.838
So many it's.

00:36:23.838 --> 00:36:28.960
You'd be surprised to know how many people are having unknown seizures in housing.

00:36:29.681 --> 00:36:30.362
You have no idea.

00:36:30.422 --> 00:36:35.702
People that have never had seizures in their life all of a sudden move into housing and have seizures.

00:36:35.702 --> 00:36:38.849
Kids having seizures, that's terrible.

00:36:38.849 --> 00:36:41.840
Kids getting admitted to the hospital with lung problems.

00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:46.226
One of my friends she was having seizures.

00:36:46.226 --> 00:36:47.510
She didn't have epilepsy.

00:36:47.510 --> 00:36:48.277
They tested her.

00:36:48.277 --> 00:37:01.719
I did all kinds of tests not epilepsy but she had quite a few grand mal seizures while living in housing and she happened to be one of the families I displaced and who sued with me and she was having seizures.

00:37:02.981 --> 00:37:03.541
That shouldn't.

00:37:03.541 --> 00:37:06.126
That's completely it's, it's bad it is.

00:37:06.126 --> 00:37:22.097
People don't know that it's and they think I'm being dramatic or I just want attention, right, oh, it's bad, it is so bad I know and I agree with you 100 because I can tell you that from my experiences I live in like living in barracks, like I mentioned before.

00:37:22.097 --> 00:37:26.585
I end up getting bronchitis, like in in my transitional barracks, and then yeah so too.

00:37:26.806 --> 00:37:29.489
When I was in hawaii, this was back in like 1990.

00:37:29.489 --> 00:37:38.275
From 1990 to 2004, the housing didn't change, you know, and and I can tell you, this has been a problem that's been going on for decades.

00:37:38.275 --> 00:37:52.391
Overall, overall, with your advocacy, mel Melissa, I want to ask you what are your primary objectives, moving forward with your work for military living conditions?

00:38:07.795 --> 00:38:14.217
the military housing privatization, through my own research and my own efforts in trying to find the answer, and why these housing companies are behaving the way that they do and nobody is doing anything.

00:38:14.217 --> 00:38:19.876
They know, congress knows, everybody knows, but why isn't anything done and they're not being arrested?

00:38:19.876 --> 00:38:25.806
Balfour Beatty was charged with felonies for maintenance report fraud.

00:38:25.806 --> 00:38:29.237
There's dozens of lawsuits and nothing is being done.

00:38:29.237 --> 00:38:39.023
So the legal part of me I was a paralegal student years ago, so my legal oriented mind I'm like, wow, how are they protected?

00:38:39.023 --> 00:38:42.295
Something is protecting them, but what so?

00:38:42.295 --> 00:38:43.902
That only led me to believe that it's those contracts that's protecting them.

00:38:43.902 --> 00:38:44.143
But what so?

00:38:44.143 --> 00:38:49.903
That only led me to believe that it's those contracts that's protecting them, those MHPI contracts from 1996.

00:38:49.985 --> 00:38:58.351
So ultimately, if we really want to see changes, we're going to have to either buy back housing, like the UK did the British military.

00:38:58.351 --> 00:39:13.657
They bought back their housing for 6 billion pounds or whatever they did, they literally just within the last month bought back their housing or we're going to have to amend those contracts or cancel them, find the military housing in breach of their contract.

00:39:13.657 --> 00:39:26.510
But there's a lot of roadblocks to that because I've heard that military housing advocate requested those contracts with FOIA requests and they got them back almost fully redacted.

00:39:26.510 --> 00:39:37.583
So nobody really knows what's in those contracts and why those companies are so protected from felony charges, from lawsuits.

00:39:37.824 --> 00:39:46.028
Lendlease was recently sued for they had to pay a military family in Texas $10.4 million, so they ended up selling out.

00:39:46.028 --> 00:39:50.706
And then another company moved into their place and nobody's in it.

00:39:50.706 --> 00:39:52.554
So hush hush and the military.

00:39:52.554 --> 00:40:05.726
Of course they're in joint venture with these, these companies, so they can't really do anything to their partner and it's just an endless cycle of straight BS, of straight red tape BS.

00:40:05.726 --> 00:40:10.498
And so I've moved my whole campaign towards cancel or buyback.

00:40:10.498 --> 00:40:14.148
Cancel or buyback, that's it.

00:40:15.355 --> 00:40:23.003
So I don't want to get too much into politics, but there's been a lot of changes lately, specifically with your cause.

00:40:23.865 --> 00:40:24.025
Yes.

00:40:25.197 --> 00:40:28.025
Are you hopeful, optimistic or are you pessimistic?

00:40:30.376 --> 00:40:37.835
No president has ever addressed the military issue, not in a way that I would like to see.

00:40:39.568 --> 00:40:41.835
Because less than 5% have to deal with it.

00:40:43.365 --> 00:40:51.659
Yeah, and it's so strange, but I feel that, with enough noise maybe you know, I don't know I'm pessimistic.

00:40:51.659 --> 00:41:08.585
It's been six years now that I've been actively advocating, every single day, running these social medias, putting content out there, contacting the Senate Armed Service Committee, contacting all the powers that be, encouraging our state's leaders to get involved with their installation, and nothing's been happening.

00:41:08.585 --> 00:41:14.887
So I don't know, maybe maybe you know I'm always hopeful, but I'm used to disappointment.

00:41:15.467 --> 00:41:19.215
This is I mean, this is seems, seems like a lot of changes going on right now.

00:41:19.215 --> 00:41:21.407
A lot of people are on notice.

00:41:21.407 --> 00:41:23.472
A lot of people are on notice.

00:41:23.472 --> 00:41:29.992
There's been a lot of there's been a lot of tarps that have been pulled over and been like what's this.

00:41:30.172 --> 00:41:30.733
What's this?

00:41:30.733 --> 00:41:33.177
So I don't know.

00:41:33.177 --> 00:41:36.668
I mean, it's the jury's out, I don't know.

00:41:36.668 --> 00:41:48.288
But, like you're saying, something has to be done, because this is something that has been going on for decades and decades and it's not something that's brand new For anybody else out there.

00:41:48.288 --> 00:41:54.119
Melissa, that's an aspiring advocate for the trials and tribulations that you've been through so far.

00:41:54.119 --> 00:42:02.719
What advice would you offer to individuals who also wish to advocate for military families or similar causes, such as yourself?

00:42:15.023 --> 00:42:21.543
It doesn't matter if you've got six followers, if you've got 600 followers, if you have 1200 followers, I don't care.

00:42:21.543 --> 00:42:23.291
Don't worry about the numbers.

00:42:23.291 --> 00:42:27.115
Make your social medias and keep posting.

00:42:27.115 --> 00:42:31.235
Keep putting that content out there, spreading the word.

00:42:31.235 --> 00:42:36.293
Keep talking to families, Hustle, go to these spouses groups and make posts.

00:42:36.293 --> 00:42:38.913
Hey, my name is this and this is what I'm doing.

00:42:39.032 --> 00:42:40.487
I started this social media.

00:42:40.487 --> 00:42:46.085
Put yourself out there, be vulnerable, be willing to make mistakes and correct yourself Sometimes.

00:42:46.085 --> 00:42:49.456
Be willing to be wrong, be wrong sometimes but then correct yourself.

00:42:49.456 --> 00:42:52.313
But ultimately, stay consistent.

00:42:52.313 --> 00:42:53.577
That was my whole thing.

00:42:53.577 --> 00:42:54.460
I didn't care.

00:42:54.460 --> 00:42:57.568
I just stayed consistent and kept posting.

00:42:57.889 --> 00:43:03.188
And now here I am and I've written articles for Pop Smoke Media.

00:43:03.188 --> 00:43:05.054
I've done a couple podcasts.

00:43:05.054 --> 00:43:09.409
I've interviewed for countless articles Senate, armed Service Committee, they know me.

00:43:09.409 --> 00:43:13.336
So stay consistent and it'll happen.

00:43:13.336 --> 00:43:15.688
But ultimately, just stay consistent.

00:43:15.688 --> 00:43:18.072
Don't ever lose that fire.

00:43:18.072 --> 00:43:20.538
Don't ever lose that, that drive.

00:43:20.538 --> 00:43:23.532
Always keep in your mind of what happened to me.

00:43:23.532 --> 00:43:24.655
This is what happened.

00:43:24.655 --> 00:43:28.329
What happened to me was was true, it, it really happened.

00:43:28.329 --> 00:43:35.228
It was that bad and and just keep, keep at it and don't ever become discouraged.

00:43:35.228 --> 00:43:36.590
Don't listen to naysayers.

00:43:36.590 --> 00:43:39.976
If I listened to naysayers, I would have quit in within like four days.

00:43:39.976 --> 00:43:42.559
So never listen to naysayers.

00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:47.431
Let them talk, let them have their opinions, let them run their mouths, block them.

00:43:47.431 --> 00:43:51.045
Whatever you have your truth, you have your truth.

00:43:51.045 --> 00:43:54.954
I had my truth, I know what happened and just hold on to that.

00:43:55.695 --> 00:43:56.036
I love.

00:43:56.036 --> 00:44:05.161
I love that advice is to be consistent, because it's very difficult to be consistent, but also uh, would like to also add to be bold and don't be afraid.

00:44:05.161 --> 00:44:07.688
Get over your fears of getting on camera.

00:44:07.688 --> 00:44:12.498
Get over your fears of voicing what you, what needs to be said.

00:44:12.498 --> 00:44:15.507
How do you, how do you deal with the haters?

00:44:15.507 --> 00:44:17.692
How do you deal with the people that are calling you a Karen?

00:44:18.211 --> 00:44:18.713
I don't.

00:44:18.713 --> 00:44:19.994
I don't deal with them.

00:44:19.994 --> 00:44:23.179
I don't give them the time of day they want my attention.

00:44:23.179 --> 00:44:24.246
I don't give it to them.

00:44:24.246 --> 00:44:31.510
They can form their groups, they can form their chats, they can talk about me until their lips fall off.

00:44:31.510 --> 00:44:32.353
I don't care.

00:44:32.353 --> 00:44:33.795
I have a path.

00:44:33.795 --> 00:44:34.858

Fighting for Better Military Housing: Melissa Godoy's Advocacy Journey

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