Top Army housing official visits JBLM

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – Last month David Dentino, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for installations, housing and partnerships, visited Joint Base Lewis-McChord to observe home renovation and construction projects, discuss future housing strategies with installation leaders and assess public-private housing partnerships.

“The Army has the largest housing inventory in all of DoD, almost 100,000 homes, so this is a big challenge,” Dentino said. “The rapidly growing population in the communities around JBLM continues to raise the cost of housing in the area and reduce community availability, which is why we are working closely with Liberty Military Housing to both increase the inventory of homes on-post while also renovating older homes.”

His visit included a stop at the Meriwether Landing neighborhood on JBLM Lewis-North, where 212 homes will be built by Liberty Military Housing, a private military housing provider that partners with the Department of Defense. In addition, he visited the Davis Hill neighborhood, where LMH is completing over 400 major home renovations, and the New Hillside neighborhood, where the company is working on more than 500 minor renovations.

“Combined, this is an investment in JBLM housing of over $200 million by LMH, our privatized housing provider,” Dentino said. “This is great progress, but doesn’t solve the longer-term deficit of on-post homes driven by the Seattle/Tacoma population growth, so we'll need to build even more new homes in the future. We are discussing some good strategies with JBLM senior leaders and LMH, and I'm hopeful we can start moving forward on implementing them soon.”

According to Angie Cardoso, director of operations for Liberty Military Housing at JBLM, the groundbreaking ceremony for Meriwether Landing’s new homes is scheduled for March 18, and the first homes are expected to be available by January 2026. In addition, the renovation projects in the New Hillside and Davis Hill neighborhoods, which will be available for service members ranking between E-4 and E-6 with dependents, are 80% and 60% complete, respectively.

“New Hillside should be completed, I believe, at the end of this year, and Davis Hill will be completed in 2027,” she said. “We’ve gone all the way down to the studs and are basically building a brand-new house.”

Of the 212 houses being built at Meriwether Landing – which have the longest waiting times for all ranks – 36 units will be available for 0-1 to 0-3 service members with dependents, and 176 units will be available for E-7 to E-9 service members with dependents. All of the new homes will have four bedrooms.

According to estimates, 66 of the new homes should be finished by the end of 2025, 126 homes by the end of 2026, and the remaining 20 homes by the end of 2027, said Beth Wilson, JBLM’s chief of housing.

“We will not wait for all 212 to be completed, we will assign these homes as they are delivered to us,” Wilson said.

She also noted that service members ranking between E-1 and E-5 can get housing within 30 days or less if they are willing to take the first available home versus requesting a specific neighborhood.

Dentino talked about the importance of public-private partnerships in addressing housing challenges at JBLM and elsewhere, and how service members’ Basic Allowance for Housing, or BAH, plays a role.

“Because our privatized housing projects primarily rely on Soldiers’ BAH to support them, the Army works closely with our privatized housing providers to oversee the investment of capital for new homes, renovations and capital repairs for the benefit of the entire housing inventory,” he said. “We must ensure investments go toward the most critical areas while also keeping a close eye on the long-term financial viability of the project and its BAH revenue stream. Over the next 4-5 years, Army privatized providers are investing billions of dollars in support of the objective of providing safe and habitable housing, improving the quality of life for soldiers and families.”

Dentino also noted that 98% of housing on Army installations in the United States is provided under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative, which authorizes the DoD to partner with private companies.

“Public-private partnerships allow the Army to realize opportunities to leverage underutilized assets, reduce costs, create new assets or capabilities and generate revenue that would otherwise be unavailable or cost-prohibitive to the Army budget,” he said. “Army privatized providers have invested $1.6 billion since 2020 and will invest another $2.3 billion in 2025 and 2026, including raising additional debt, sales of excess real property and additional government equity contributions.”

The Army is also exploring the possibility of using public-private partnerships to address challenges facing its barracks, which are also known as unaccompanied housing. In addition, the Army is observing an Air Force pilot program that is using intergovernmental support agreements to address unaccompanied housing deficits at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico.

“The Army is looking closely at this effort to see if we can do something similar,” Dentino said.