KOMO News | New housing project at JBLM to cut off-base living, boost military community
By: Denise Whitaker
WASHINGTON STATE — The need for more housing, at an affordable price, is great all throughout Pierce County and this includes Joint Base Lewis McChord (JBLM).
It’s been about a decade since new family housing has been built, so you can imagine the celebrations over a new project set to begin construction this spring.
The construction equipment’s already moved onto the empty space, where Liberty Military Housing will be building 212 new homes for service member families stationed at JBLM.
“I absolutely look forward to building hundreds and hundreds more housing for JBLM,” Col. Kent Park, the Garrison Commander at JBLM, said during a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new homes.
Every home will have four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.
“Oh, it is fantastic! As many people know, we have a shortage of houses here on base,” Park told KOMO News.
There are 5,159 homes on base right now for military families, but there is still a waitlist. Finding a rental home off base that’s large enough to accommodate a family is not easy, and usually more money than young military families can afford.
“Currently, we have about 70% of our residents living off the installation and so what we like to do is try to bring them on the installation as much as possible and lower the pressure on the rental market out in the economy and keep families military families closer to home,” Park said.
“Living off post can be scary. You don’t know the community you’re gonna be moving into,” Gina Babski, a military spouse who lives on base, told KOMO News.
She and her husband Michael, who is in the Army, have four children. They were first stationed at JBLM more than three years and she said Michael just transitioned to a new position so they will be here for another three.
“What we get on this base is better than what we would get off base,” she said. Babski said she feels fortunate that they get to live on base in the Meriwether neighborhood where there are parks, playgrounds, and her children’s school within walking distance.
“Just having people in your life closely associated with knowing what you’re going through as far as training and deployments. So, it’s just an exciting opportunity to see that more homes are being built within the year,” Babski said.
“The sense of community we build when we build housing is incredibly important,” Rep. Marilyn Strickland, from Washington’s 10th congregational district said.
“That’s 100% what we’re about. We’re about serving the entire family,” Phillip Rizzo, the CEO of Liberty Military Housing, told KOMO News.
A photo of a sign outside the Joint Base Lewis-McChord Lewis Main Madigan Gate.
Rizzo told KOMO News that they’ve been on base since 2016, working to create a community for service members and their families. He said they regularly hold free community events for families to come together. Rizzo told KOMO News that about 3,000 of 5,159 homes on base were built before 1978 and that they just remodeled about 900 of those,
“Yeah, so Liberty Military Housing is in partnership with the Department of the Army, so we don’t receive any actual federal funding. All of our funding comes from one lease at a time from our residents. And so that allows us to then reinvest the money that we receive in rent into projects,” Rizzo told KOMO News.
“It’s a part of the promise that we have made to our service members,” Park told KOMO News. And if there’s ever an issue, the mayor of each neighborhood is there to help. Babski is the mayor of Meriwether, a volunteer position that she took over from another spouse.
“So as a community liaison, it’s exciting for me to see that more houses are being built, which means more opportunities for soldiers and their families to have, to live on post,” Babski said.
As mayor she works with her neighbors, listening to the concerns and working to get action, by talking with staff from Liberty Military Housing, a soldier’s commanding officer or the Garrison Commander. These issues could revolve around house maintenance, use or upkeep of community spaces, and safety.
KOMO News asked Liberty Military Housing how rents are set. We were told that each community has a set amount that matches the service member’s basic allowance for housing (BAH).
The BAH is set by the Department of Defense (DOD) and it is based on the service member’s job and rank. The BAH also takes into account the base location, pay grade and dependency status.
It’s part of their salary, so Babski explained that their rent payment is automatically distributed to their housing provider, in this case, Liberty. When they lived off base in another state, they were responsible for paying their landlord.
Service members’ BAH rates are set by the, not Liberty or any other private military housing provider. The amount of BAH also takes into account duty location and dependency status.
“When we take care of who are serving take care of their families when they’re living in safe, clean, and secure housing. It is better for readiness. They choose to serve, and they want to keep on serving. Serving our country in the military is the highest honor because we take care of the people who fight for us every single day,” Strickland said.