MARINE CORPS AIR STATION MIRAMAR, Calif. -- You've been stationed at one of the most sought after places to live in America. With that said, there's bad news and good news. The bad is that San Diego may also be the toughest place in America for a military family to find housing. But the good news is you're not alone in the struggle.

A team of dedicated professionals at the Military Family Housing Office waits to assist you in every phase of finding a place for your family to live.

Your first step should be to get on the list for military family housing. This will probably be the first hint that you're not in Kansas anymore. There are roughly 6,000 families already in line. There are 9,000
military housing units at 51 different sites in the San Diego area, which is home to more than 38,000 active duty military families. The average wait for military housing is 18 months. However, it could be as short as
two to three months or as long as six years depending on your rank, type of unit you qualify for and where you're willing to live.

In the best-case scenario, the Ramona Vista housing area, the wait may only be a few months. However, members are discouraged from accepting quarters at the Ramona site unless they have reliable transportation. The commute is more than 90 miles round-trip each day to most Navy bases but only about half that distance for Miramar Marines, to say nothing of the traffic. San Diego traffic can turn a geographically short drive into an agonizingly slow road trip at any given time on any given day.

On the other end of the spectrum is the plight of the junior officer that qualifies for a two-bedroom unit. The wait alone is four to six years. Then to qualify for the unit, the servicemember must have at least six months remaining on his or her tour in San Diego. So if a junior officer can wrangle getting stationed in the area for three consecutive tours, then he or she could live in housing on the third tour. However, by that time chances are the servicemember will no longer be a junior officer and will have to apply to a different list.

Because of the shortage of military family housing (and a list of other reasons that will be discussed in follow-on stories in this continuing series) the Department of the Navy has declared San Diego a critical
housing area. Officials advise servicemembers to initially come to San Diego without their families.

"Leave your families either where you're moving from, or with family, until you can find a place for them to live," encourages Linda McGinn, Personnel Support Division director, Military Family Housing,
San Diego.

To help ease the strain in the future, the Navy is planning to award a contract for nearly 600 new houses this spring, according to McGinn. Five hundred units will be constructed at the former Naval Training Center. Then another 900 houses will be built to replace 812 houses at Cabrillo Heights that are currently
occupied but are scheduled for demolition after the houses at the NTC are opened. There is also an Environmental Impact Statement in progress studying a proposal to build another 1,600 housing units aboard the air station.

In an attempt to speed up the process, the Navy is doing business in a new way, said McGinn. After the Navy puts up some seed money, a private contractor will take over the demolition and construction of the new units. The normal amount of time for a military-contracted construction project from the approval date
to the move-in date is approximately 10 years, said McGinn. "The Public, Private Venture is designed to get houses quicker, better and faster," she said. "Our goal is to shorten that time to hopefully three years or at least a maximum of five years."

But this relief probably won't come soon enough to help you. Now that you're on the housing list, your next move will probably be to find a place to rent for your family. As with each step in this process, you will face challenges unique to living in such a desirable location as Southern California. The article in the
next edition of the Flight Jacket will focus on these challenges and will highlight programs that can save you money on a security deposit and guarantee you a less expensive rent.

More information on the San Diego Military Housing Office, and the plethora of programs it runs for your benefit, can be found on the Internet at http://www.mfhs d.navy.mil. You can also call the main office on Naval Station San Diego at (619) 556-8443 or the Miramar Housing Office at (858) 577-1121.