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thedrifter
01-09-07, 04:36 AM
Pendleton Marines get more housing money to offset higher cost of living

By: JOE BECK - Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON -- Enlisted Marines at Camp Pendleton will see a significant increase in the amount of money they receive for housing when their first paycheck of the new year arrives Monday.

The increases over 2006 will range from 4.5 percent to 6 percent, depending on rank, Camp Pendleton officials said Monday. Housing allowances are determined in the Pentagon using several factors, including the cost of living in specific locations. The Pentagon has calculated the average housing allowance increase for all enlisted military personnel stationed in the United States to be 3.5 percent for this year.

Several Marines left no doubt the increase would be a big help in coping with Southern California's notoriously high-priced housing market.

Cpl. Alec L. Kleinsmith, who lives in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Fallbrook with his wife, said his housing allowance will increase from $1,275 a month in 2006 to $1,409 a month. The average rent in San Diego County for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment was $1,352 a month in fall 2006, according to the San Diego County Apartment Association.

"It is something I appreciate the Marine Corps doing," Kleinsmith said. "It's definitely something we deserve."

The housing allowance forms a major part of each Marine's overall compensation package that also includes basic pay and subsistence pay, which covers the cost of food. For 2007, basic pay for a private first class with dependents at Camp Pendleton is $1,300 per month, plus $279.88 for subsistence and $1,409 for housing.

Housing allowances are determined by each Marine's location, pay grade and number of dependents. Wayne Roseberry, manpower project officer at Camp Pendleton, said variations in housing allowances are designed to reflect differences in housing costs across the United States. That way, he said, Marines of the same rank retain the same purchasing power for housing regardless of where they are stationed.

The Pentagon uses data on housing costs gathered from specific locations throughout the country in determining what constitutes an average rent around military installations such as Camp Pendleton. San Diego County's painfully high housing costs led Camp Pendleton officials to change the way they surveyed rent levels around the base in trying to determine how much Marines pay for housing, Roseberry said.

The goal, Roseberry said, was to collect a set of housing data that reflect the high cost of living closer to San Diego and to reduce the influence that cheaper rents to the north of the base have exerted over data collected in previous years.

Roseberry said many Marines living off base take a half-hour or longer to commute one way to Camp Pendleton from residences around Temecula or Murrieta, a choice they make to escape the higher rents that prevail among apartments from San Diego to Oceanside. A new survey method adopted by Camp Pendleton officials focused on housing costs throughout the region and placed less emphasis on lower rents in the Temecula and Murrieta area, Roseberry said.

Now the Pentagon can see the cost of living in areas around Camp Pendleton where Marines would like to live, but where rents are too high for many of them to do so, Roseberry said.

"It helps paint a truer picture of rental market costs closest to our installation," he said. Providing higher housing allowances should make it easier for Marines to move closer to the base and eliminate the inconveniences and inefficiencies of a long commute, he said.

Roseberry said the push for recalculating housing costs came from Maj. Gen. Michael R. Lehnert, the commander of all seven West Coast Marine bases, including Camp Pendleton.

"Having a general's office level of attention, it just doesn't get any better than that," Roseberry said.

Cpl. Joseph DiGirolamo said the size of this year's housing allowance increase came as a pleasant surprise to someone used to paying much less for housing in his hometown in upstate New York. DiGirolamo said he pays $1,095 a month for an apartment in Fallbrook that would fetch about $600 or $700 back East.

"When the numbers came out, I was glad to see it," DiGirolamo said. "The cost of living in California, it's pretty expensive -- but now we can endure a little more, and get along a little better. We're not suffering, but it's definitely a nice increase."

-- Contact staff writer Joe Beck at (760) 740-3516 or jbeck@nctimes.com.