(WJBF) – Getting better housing for those defending our country. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff held a hearing Tuesday morning on the safety of military housing, specifically at Fort Gordon.

This comes after his visit to the post last week to observe inspections of those homes.

A bi-partisan report spearheaded by Ossoff last year showed the contractor in charge of maintaining homes on post did not properly clean or maintain the homes.

“These families are making sacrifices,” said Sen. Ossoff. “They shouldn’t have to sacrifice a safe and healthy home. It’s wrong. And it directly undermines morale and military readiness.”

That hearing featured impacted families, as well as representatives from the army.

“The input from the families directly is essential.  It’s so deeply appreciated.  And since I first began, two years ago, to look seriously at this issue, it started by hearing directly from military families at Fort Gordon.  It continued through an 8-month bipartisan investigation where we interviewed dozens of residents of housing at Fort Gordon. Those folks then came and testified before the Permanent Subcommittee on investigations.  And then through this follow up investigation that my staff has conducted, we’ve been in touch with military families and some of those military families came and testified today.”

Representatives from Belfour Beatty, the contractor at Fort Gordon, were invited but did not attend.

“Here’s the bottom line, immediately following that 8-month bipartisan investigation, the army began taking seriously the depth of concern about the quality and safety of housing on post at Fort Gordon.  And we have seen signifficant action by the US Army to understand the scope of the problem and to try to hold Balfour Beatty accountable to their obligations to provide safe and healthy housing for military families.  There are some reasons to believe that some progress is resulting from that more intense approach by the army.  But there’s still a long way to go to get to the outcome that we seek, which is safe, healthy housing for every family on post at Fort Gordon and across the country.”