The U.S. Army describes how fiscal and maintenance struggles forged the creation of the MHPI program and how partner companies continue to improve on-base housing:
Over the past six months, Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s privatized housing partner Lincoln Military Housing and base leaders have worked to fix reported deficiencies in on-base privatized housing. People and policies are also being put in place to ensure our on-base community receives the best quality housing available.
Recently, some residents asked why the military switched to privatized housing in the first place.
“The simple answer is, the Army was not resourced sufficiently, so we were unable to do housing well,” said Steve Perrenot, JBLM Directorate of Public Works director.
In 1998, the Army began looking for a way to interest developers in the construction and operation of installation family housing.
According to a housing study published in 2003 by the Naval Postgraduate School, many housing units on installations (in the 1990s) needed extensive renovation or replacement, but this was an era of declining budgets for military construction.
…To date, JBLM’s privatized housing partners Equity Residential Properties (2002-15) and Lincoln Military Housing (2016-present) have renovated 3,379 existing homes, designed and built 1,468 new homes, demolished 924 units, and built five community centers for military families to use for special events at a cost of $350 million. Currently, there are 5,159 family housing units in 22 communities on JBLM.
Moving forward, 80 new housing units are being constructed in the Meriwether Landing housing area on Lewis North at a cost of $33 million, and 167 housing units in the Heartwood III housing area on McChord Field are being renovated at a cost of $13 million. Construction and renovation will be done by 2022.
Lincoln Military Housing is now Liberty Military Housing, an employee-owned company.