Overview
- The defense secretary on Thursday issued a memo formally standing up the cross-service group and ordering a department-wide barracks investment plan within 30 days.
- Hegseth said his office will personally review the plan and the effort will give greater authority to local and unit commanders to address quality-of-life issues.
- The initiative follows a 2023 GAO report that found unsafe and substandard conditions in many barracks, including mold, sewage overflows, rodents and inoperable fire systems.
- Funding identified so far includes more than $1 billion from the summer spending package, which supporters describe as an initial down payment relative to a much larger backlog.
- Earlier this year the Pentagon redirected roughly $1 billion away from Army barracks upgrades to border operations, a shift critics say has compounded the housing shortfalls.