Armed Forces Retirement Home - Funding

Funding

The current legal basis for funding of the Armed Forces Retirement Home Agency is contained in 24 USC § 419 - Armed Forces Retirement Home Trust Fund

• Such amounts as may be transferred to the Fund.
• Moneys deposited in the Fund by the Chief Operating Officer realized from gifts or from the disposition of property and facilities.
• Amounts deposited in the Fund as monthly fees paid by residents of the Retirement Home under section 414 of this title.
• Amounts of fines and forfeitures deposited in the Fund under section 2772 of title 10.
• Amounts deposited in the Fund as deductions from the pay of enlisted members, warrant officers, and limited duty officers under section 1007(i) of title 37.
• Interest from investments made under subsection (c) of this section.

Other sources of income have been used in the past. At one time a small percentage of the Prize Money awarded for the capture of enemy war ships and pirate vessels, was awarded to the Naval Home Trust Fund. A notation in the “Congressional Record for the Navy Affairs Committee” in 1907-09 notes that the Naval Home Trust still had a balance of $14,000,000 partly from the capture of Prize Vessels, per an Act of 1870, and from suits for depredation of timber belonging to the United States. It is plain the Navy had an interest in the nation’s timberlands when the Navy was still equipped with wooden sailing ships, but why this was true in the 20th Century is unclear.

Funding for the Armed Forces retirement homes has always been based upon the principle of no cost to the public. But when wars happen or economic calamities happen or natural disasters happen, the funding system has failed. That is why the first item of the list above ("...Such amounts as may be transferred to the Fund") is included. This refers to the expendature of public monies appropriated by Congress. The original Naval Asylum required public monies for construction following an adventure by the trustees of the Naval Hospital Fund into private equity Investment. They invested in private bank stock, intending to get a higher rate of return, but in the 1820’s the bank lost money, and so did the trust fund committee of the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury. The Gulfport home required public funding for a new home after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the old home. The Washington home is receiving public help to rebuild after the earthquake of 2011 damaged the Sherman building. But in general and for most of the time the system of self funding as worked.