Pentagon Blind to Troop Woes in Areas Across US with Limited Housing Options, Report Finds

A new government watchdog report has found that the Pentagon is not doing enough to track how much housing is available in communities around its bases, and that's forcing some service members to leave families in other states, work extra jobs or live in recreational vehicles just to afford rent.

Furthermore, the Government Accountability Office report released Wednesday noted that the Pentagon "does not routinely assess" the effects -- both financial and quality-of-life hardships -- that this housing crunch has foisted on service members.

The report is just the latest in a long series of government reports and media coverage that shows the Pentagon has been neglecting the housing needs of troops, and the problem has gotten to a point where any major fix is years away and easier solutions such as boosting pay have proven ineffective.

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Military.com reached out to the Pentagon for reaction or comment to the findings but did not receive a reply in time for publication.

At the heart of the problem, according to the report, is the fact that the Defense Department and the services have been neglecting to regularly complete housing requirements and market analyses, or HMRAs.

Those reports are supposed to help installation commanders and military leaders understand not only how much housing is available around the area of a base, but also "economic trends that could affect housing supply and demand."

Pentagon policy, according to the report, says HMRAs are supposed to be done "within a minimum four-year interval," leaving open to interpretation whether that means no less than every four years or at most every four years.

Since Pentagon leaders have not stepped in to clarify, investigators found that "the services have generally followed their own guidance," and the result has been a wide gulf between the branches.

The Navy, for example, had all of its reports done in the last five years while the vast majority -- 89% -- of the Air Force's reports were more than 10 years old.

Officials at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, for example, told investigators that their 2018 report "limited the installation's ability to effectively plan for more updated housing requirements."

However, the report noted that even fully complying with this rule was still not providing the services with a clear picture of the problem.

"Naval Air Station Key West told us even an HRMA conducted as recently as 2021 was outdated given rapid changes in the local housing market in their area," the report said.

The Navy's installation at Key West is a clear example of the problems that service members can face in attaining housing through no fault of their own.

In 2022, Military.com reported that the closure of two barracks buildings sent about 80 sailors scrambling to find new places to live in the expensive and tiny community made up of a group of islands at the southernmost tip of Florida.

The Navy tried to deal with the problem by offering even the youngest single sailors at the base a housing allowance. But the extra cash didn't make much of a difference, because there was simply little housing to be had in an area that has little land to begin with and is also rife with tourists who are willing to pay higher prices.

One sailor told Military.com at the time that two of their fellow sailors "found something on Craigslist where they're living with eight other people in a house."

A year later, the base was still struggling.

The GAO report confirmed that reporting, saying that "service members stationed at this location described significant challenges finding available and affordable housing, despite the most recent HRMA showing a surplus of housing." It noted that Key West's "large share of vacation rentals" play a major role since, while being available housing, they are "cost-prohibitive to rent long-term for many service members."

Living with Termites or Without Air Conditioning

Investigators said that between 2022 and 2024, they visited seven bases.

Four were across the country in Fort Bliss, Texas; Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; Naval Air Station Key West; and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as well as three bases in Hawaii: U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

They also held 15 discussion groups where service members told them that the housing problem was not only having financial impacts but affecting their quality of life and mission performance.

Echoing the earlier Military.com reporting, GAO officials were told in Key West that long-term rentals are scarce and typically require significant up-front, move-in costs. Investigators were told that service members had to "withdraw retirement savings, incur significant credit card debt, or secure additional employment" just to be able to afford rent, utilities, gas and groceries.

"Participants in 11 of the 15 discussion groups noted that they or others they knew had second jobs to supplement their income given high costs of housing and living expenses," the report said.

Across the country, some service members were forced to live in homes without air conditioning despite being in a hot, humid climate. One told investigators that they "had to settle for a poor-quality home out in town -- with major termite issues -- just to have somewhere to live."

"At two installations, discussion group participants told us they lived, or knew others who lived, in recreational vehicles due to availability and affordability challenges," the report said.

Others chose to either live farther away from base -- one service member said their commute was two hours -- while troops at two different bases said they left their families behind in other states in order to afford rent.

"Discussion group participants at Mountain Home Air Force Base all agreed that housing was limited near base, and as a result, many service members seek housing about 50 miles away in Boise, Idaho," the report noted.

Many of these problems go unnoticed by leaders at the Pentagon, because the Defense Department simply doesn't ask.

Investigators found that while the Pentagon has tools like surveys or town halls to get feedback on base housing issues, it "does not routinely assess the effects that limited supply or unaffordable housing has on all affected service members."

"The tenant satisfaction survey is not administered to service members who live in private-sector housing -- the majority of service members -- which limits the services' ability to understand the financial and quality-of-life effects of limited supply or unaffordable housing on all affected service members," the report added.

Limited Efforts to Help

Broadly, the idea that service members are struggling with finding housing is not news to leaders at the Pentagon, and there have been several instances -- with the help or insistence of Congress -- where they have tried to address that need with more pay.

In 2021, amid the housing crunch brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rolled out a boost in the housing allowance, saying that "basic necessities like food and housing" shouldn't be among the things troops worry about. That policy was temporary.

More recently, the Pentagon rolled out "economic hardship bonuses" that Congress authorized in 2023. However, the amount of money given by Congress meant that the most junior service members would only be getting about $20 a month for half a year.

Congress included language in last year's massive military policy bill to allow more flexibility in adjusting the housing allowance to respond to market conditions. There's also language in this year's House version of the defense bill that would increase the housing allowance from covering 95% of housing costs to 100%, though there is no guarantee that provision will be signed into law.

Even so, the GAO report noted that the way the housing allowance is calculated "may not be suitable, especially for areas with limited housing supply or high costs." The cost of living adjustment, or COLA, is helpful to some but is not available in all areas.

For example, it's not available in Key West despite the fact that both service members and Navy officials told investigators the area presents troops with financial burdens.

Meanwhile, according to the report, the Pentagon's own guidance says that it should be pursuing privatization, more military construction or leasing to ease the burden. Yet, investigators found that the Defense Department "challenges with these options, and thus efforts to pursue them have been limited."

Among its recommendations, the GAO suggests that the Pentagon develop and maintain a list of critical housing areas and create a plan "for how the department can respond to and address the financial and quality-of-life effects ... such as through feasible solutions to increase housing supply or through additional strategies such as alternative compensation."

The report also recommended that the Pentagon use its Status of Forces survey to get a better sense of where limited supply or unaffordable housing is impacting troops.

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