Most military families on base don't know their rights as tenants, survey finds

More than half of military families don't know about their housing rights, official feedback systems or the offices set up to manage issues with their private housing landlords, a survey found.
Two out of three respondents said that issues with military housing had affected their family's quality of life, and almost half said they had paid out of pocket for repairs or improvements to their homes.
The survey, conducted by the Military Housing Coalition and released today, found that nearly 56% of respondents were not aware of their tenant rights, and 48% did not feel their base housing office provided adequate oversight.
The fiscal year 2020 national defense bill established the Tenant Bill of Rights, granting military families 18 rights around their privatized military housing, including access to a formal dispute resolution process with their landlords. The education around these protections and other housing resources are supplied by Government Housing Offices at each military base.
Heather Hall, the founder of the Military Housing Coalition and a military spouse, told Task & Purpose that the last few years of advocacy work aren't meaningful unless families know about their protections and the help that's available to them.
'As much as people have been pounding the ground like myself and other advocates out there to say this is an oversight piece,' Hall said, 'they still don't know that that's an available resource to them.'
The coalition received responses from over 1,100 active-duty members, military spouses, DoD civilians, and retirees — a small sample of the hundreds of thousands who live in private military housing. On U.S. military installations, these private landlords operate 99% of family housing, which is made up of more than 200,000 units, according to the GAO.
'We are committed to providing our warfighters and their families the safe and quality housing they deserve. We appreciate the support of military and veteran community partners on improving awareness of DOD's Housing Feedback System, and Congressional committees to make much needed housing reforms,' a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement to Task & Purpose.
Military quality of life had become a major topic in Washington, D.C. in 2019, leading to major changes and additions in the fiscal year 2020 defense bill. Separately, in 2021, Balfour Beatty, one of the military's largest private housing landlords, agreed to plead guilty and pay $65 million in fines for 'pervasive fraud' which included falsified maintenance records.
Hall said the momentum around improving private military housing from the beginning of the decade seems to have dissipated post-pandemic. Major changes were made to 2020 defense bill to address housing and in 2021, Balfour Beatty, one of the military's largest private housing landlords, agreed to plead guilty and pay $65 million in fines for 'pervasive fraud' which included falsified maintenance records
But in recent years, a majority of military quality of life topics in Congress have addressed fixes to barracks, troop pay increases, and childcare.
'That's not an excuse to just completely be like, 'OK, we're done talking about housing. We're done having this conversation in Congress, we're done having hearings.' And essentially, that's what happened,' Hall said. 'It's sad that we've put all of this legislation into place over the years and yet we're still fighting that original battle that we still have bad actors.'
Across bases, Government Housing Offices go by different names, which the coalition thinks should be standardized. Personnel in these offices are directed to hold information sessions with families who are new arrivals to the bases and present them with their bill of rights and offer resources for any issues that may arise.
According to the survey, 26.5% of respondents didn't know about the office's role in the first place, which mirrored findings from an April 2023 Government Accountability Office report that described confusion over implementation of the dispute resolution process and the roles of official Department of Defense military housing advocates.
In August 2024, the Department of Defense launched its Housing Feedback System for active-duty troops and their dependents 'to submit feedback on their current leased unit, ensuring that their voices are heard and their concerns are addressed in a timely manner.'
But in the MHC survey, 67.5% said they were unaware of the feedback system. At the time of the survey, there were 34 public entries despite 183 respondents indicating they submitted their own feedback, which the coalition said raised transparency concerns.
'Many respondents reported being unaware of their rights as tenants and the resources available to them – factors that critically undermine their ability to seek help or resolve problems effectively,' according to an executive summary of the MHC survey. 'These findings reinforce the urgent need for stronger communication, improved tenant education, and coordinated, systemic reforms across the military housing landscape.'
'The reason I do this is because I don't want anyone to feel like they're in a situation like I was back then — that I didn't feel like I had anyone,' Hall said. 'Maintenance and the community management, sometimes they get the angry spouse, but you have absolutely no idea what this spouse is dealing with at the time.'
Military spouses made up nearly 82% of responses, 'highlighting the critical role they play in identifying and reporting housing issues,' the coalition noted in survey materials provided to Task & Purpose.
The coalition advocates for adding spouses as tenants on private military housing leases since oftentimes they aren't, which restricts their access to certain rights like the dispute resolution process.
Nearly 63% of respondents said on the survey that their housing conditions had negatively affected them or their family's quality of life, especially their mental and physical health.
The majority of problems reported on the survey were about mold, mildew, pest infestations, HVAC failures, water intrusion and appliance issues — issues that have been reported countless times by news outlets and have been the subject of concern at Congressional hearings on military budgets. The coalition is asking for the DoD to standardize the way private landlords address mold and water intrusion in military homes.
'Some companies are doing the right thing and trying to implement policies and asking that their contractors have certifications for handling those kinds of issues,' Hall said. 'But then we still see residents that are staying in other housing providers, that mildew and mold are being painted over or it's being dismissed as dust and not being taken seriously and it's resulting in physical health issues to our families.'
While Hall's husband was deployed, her daughter was in and out of the hospital with respiratory issues, which she believes was the result of mold exposure. Sometimes her daughter would run a 102 fever and have symptoms come and go. Hall said it made her own family members question the validity of her daughter being sick.
'I couldn't prove that it was the home, but she didn't have it before and she didn't end up having it after and I looked like a crazy person. I felt like I was crazy,' Hall said. 'My husband was gone. If it wasn't for my mom coming into town and helping me, I have no idea what I would have done because I was just physically and mentally exhausted.'
When maintenance workers pulled up her kitchen flooring, they discovered black mold. Hall said she 'lost it.' She was in the middle of managing the housing problems, maintaining her son's school and sports schedule and driving her daughter back and forth to Kansas City for a pediatric pulmonologist. Around the same time, an administrative error interrupted her husband's pay so sometimes she wondered how she was going to pay for gas to get her daughter to the pulmonologist.
She was mentally and physically exhausted.
'That's the mental strain on these families is, they know something's wrong but they can't prove it,' Hall said. 'I understand the legalities behind it to these companies, and I don't think that there's willful negligence here. I don't think that anyone in any of these companies goes to work every day thinking that they're going to do something wrong and do something willfully, but you can't prove it.'
Around 45% of respondents said they paid out of pocket for repairs or improvements for their military housing units. That result tracks with several complaints in another recent lawsuit against Balfour Beatty, which included a Navy family in Florida told Task & Purpose that the damages from mold and a broken HVAC system cost them thousands, including the husband's reenlistment bonus.
'The fact that anyone said yes that they have made a repair to their home, living on base out of their own pocket due to negligence, really that kind of stung a little bit. Nobody should have to fix their own home, especially when they choose to live on base,' Hall said. 'They should depend on the provider to fix their home.'
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