Military Families Left Without Homes After PCS

The summer military moving shuffle is a common sight. Moving trucks line streets in on post-housing, and among neighborhoods where military families frequent. While many military families leave their previous duty stations, are they moving directly into homes? Is housing affordable?

While the basic allowance for housing (BAH) did increase in some areas in the 22-23 fiscal year, it was not enough for many areas. The housing crisis is nationwide. Home prices spiked during the pandemic and interest rates continue to increase. The housing inventory is low as many homeowners do not want to give up their low-interest rate mortgage. This means that there are fewer homes available for purchase.  Unfortunately, the rental market boomed to prices sometimes double what the rental price was three years ago, far beyond the BAH. Why the huge change in the housing market? Atop of stagnant sellers, another factor is investment groups like Blackstone who purchased many homes during COVID as they lost revenue on their commercial properties. These homes were then turned into a large property management company, Invitation, and rented out at top market prices. These homes, however, have led to lawsuits in some areas due to poor maintenance. When affordable housing is out of reach, what do military families do? And will they ever again have a chance to build home equity like their non-military peers?

A post on a local military spouse group showcases what families are dealing with this summer and have been for the last couple of years in areas where the BAH has not kept up with the local housing market:

“I think we’ve come to a standstill point in our life and literally don’t know the next move. We are paying $2750 [BAH for this member is $2,745] a month for our house, an hour from base. We have survived as long as we can. With gas, tolls, utilities, and food for our giant family, we just can’t do it anymore….We are at our end. Savings is gone, income isn’t enough to cover these expenses we did not expect….We’ve looked into food stamps and they’re telling us we make too much…How are our enlisted friends doing it?”

These kinds of posts are common in areas of high cost of living. Families are turning to programs like WIC and food stamps, but some families do not qualify as the post mentioned. Installations may offer food pantries, but these may be designated only for certain ranks and don’t serve all the families that need it. These programs are just band-aids to a larger problem.

On-installation military housing would be a reasonable answer, but oftentimes in high-cost-of-living areas, base housing lists have a long waitlist. On-base housing affords people with a home managed by a privatized housing agency, on-call maintenance and included utilities all for the cost of the entire BAH. There is not housing for every military member and their family.

Per the BAH primer for the DOD, “Per U.S. Code Title 37 § 403, BAH rates must be based on the housing costs of ‘civilians with comparable income levels [to Service members] in the same area.’” Anchors are set for different ranks for those with dependents and those without. The example used within the primer here, discusses a E6 with dependents with a housing allowance for a 3-bedroom townhouse and a WO3 with dependents rating a 3-bedroom single-family home, and what those costs would be in formula to determine the dollar difference. Certain ranks with and without dependents are used as “anchor” points, and then the formula is used to determine the rate.

The DOD uses several resources to analyze the market area annually for accurate reflections of housing costs. The analysis is done in the spring and summer months when most military families are PCSing, and when the rental market is most active.  Per the DOD, they collect current residential vacancy data from local Military Housing Office representatives, commercial subscription-based rental databases and Robert D. Niehaus, Inc. to determine an accurate BAH rate. Niehaus, Inc reviews rental data and the military housing office reviews that data for safety. Homes like mobile homes, one-room units and homes in poor repair (although it doesn’t say how these are determined) are removed from the data. This data collection is completed in August, and the DOD and Service Housing perform a quality review through October. The DOD determines the total housing costs of median rent and average utilities for each military housing area. The DOD then calculates the rates through November, and DOD typically approves the final rates sometime in December before announcing it. BAH is supposed to cover 95% of housing costs, with the service member to cover 5%.

If the DOD wants its personnel to be content and productive in their roles, then maintaining clean, affordable housing and reasonable commutes would assist with the long-term goal of maintaining attrition.  Nothing is listed in the DOD document about the radius around a military base where housing data is collected. Areas like Washington DC and its suburbs have a much higher cost of living, but the BAH doesn’t necessarily equate to 95% of housing costs in those areas so the data may include 30-60 miles as the crow flies for housing options.

No individual service member information is solicited for BAH calculations. If there is a concern over BAH, the DOD directs service members and their family members to reach out through their Chain of Command per page 16 of the 2022 BAH Primer.  Few service members are going to take that step, and few chains of command will know what to do if their servicemembers bring up this concern.  The reality is that inflation is hitting servicemembers more than just in the grocery cart, it is shrinking the roof over their heads and lengthening their commute.  Base pay and BAH are supposed to keep up, but they haven’t.