When Army Maj. Omar Jones arrived at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2003 with his wife and three children, he expected the military to provide his family with a suitable home.
Instead, the housing office handed him the keys to a house that had already been condemned. The housing official explained that there wasn’t enough money to repair the property and advised Jones not to request maintenance unless it was an emergency.
Two decades later, Jones would oversee housing across 104 Army installations as commander of Army Installation Management Command, learning firsthand how military housing had changed and why the relationship between military leaders and private housing companies remains essential.
In an interview with Military.com during the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Jones, the former commander of Army Installation Management Command and incoming vice president for Leadership and Education at AUSA, reflected on three decades of the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI), a program he credits with bringing approximately $30 billion in private investment into military housing.
His assessment is that privatization has delivered substantial improvements, but its continued success depends on something beyond financial investment: leadership, accountability and effective partnerships.