Artist rendering of the 212 new duplex-style homes to be built at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. (Liberty Military Housing)
TACOMA, Wash. — Joint Base Lewis-McChord broke ground this week on 212 new homes that base officials hope will ease a housing crunch in and around the military base in a rapidly growing region of Washington state.
“About 70% of our residents live off the installation, and to me, that is unfortunate,” Army Col. Kent Park, the base commander, said Tuesday. “I would love to bring more and more on to the installation.”
The base is headquarters of I Corps, the Army’s component of the Indo-Pacific Command region, which stretches from Alaska down to California and across the Pacific to Australia and India. The Pentagon has increased the number of troops, ships and aircraft committed to the region to counter China’s rapidly growing military and economic presence.
That has put stress on the ability of Lewis-McChord to keep pace with the demands of growth, including housing. When relying on off-base housing, the military can’t control the cost and quality of where service members live.
“As JBLM continues to grow to meet operational demands, our infrastructure must keep pace,” Park said.
The base shared by the Army and Air Force has 5,159 units of base housing for 36,000 service members and 47,000 military family members, according to Scot Keith, a base spokesman.
At the groundbreaking ceremony this week, Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Wash., who represents a district that includes the base, said the new homes would help junior officers and senior non-commissioned officers with families.
But she said Lewis-McChord is about 1,000 units short of enough housing to meet demand. Base officials agreed.
The shortage forces more soldiers and airmen to live off base and compete for rentals in a growing region with its own housing shortage.
Strickland, a self-described “Army brat” lived in housing at what is now Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. She said housing for troops helped build a sense of community that is undercut when too many troops live in far-flung clusters of rentals away from a base.
“We need to build as much housing as we can as soon as we can,” said Strickland, a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “Housing is a key to troops feeling secure and feeling secure is a major part of recruiting and retention.”
The new homes will be duplex-style with four bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms, two-car garages and fenced backyards with covered patios.
There are also four-bedroom homes, but those are in high demand and the waiting list is long, according to Beth Wilson, the Public Works Housing Division chief.
Plans call for the first homes to be ready for residents in January 2026, with 66 occupied by the end of the year.
“We will not wait for all 212 to be completed,” Wilson said. “We will assign these homes as they are delivered to us.”
The project would be finished by the end of 2027.
The homes are to be constructed by Liberty Military Housing utilizing $130 million in funding from the Military Housing Privatization Initiative, the $30 billion program that uses private-sector funding for construction and renovation of military housing across the country.
The homes will be the second major housing project to start in the past six months at Lewis-McChord.
The base won a competition for an Army pilot project to spend $100 million on barracks designed specifically to house troops from one unit. Work began in August 2024. When finished in 2027, it will be home to 168 soldiers of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force.
Lewis-McChord was once in a remote location south of Seattle and Tacoma. That has changed over time.
“When you came here 30 years ago, it was like the base was out in the middle of nowhere,” Strickland said. “Now it’s in a mix of urban and suburban communities. It’s more expensive to rent.”
The base is in Pierce County, the second most populous county in the state, after King County, which includes Seattle. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Pierce County grew to 933,130 residents in 2024. That’s nearly 18% growth since 2010, when the population was 795,402.
Strickland said building barracks and houses was part of the solution to the military housing crunch at Lewis-McChord and other bases throughout the country.
Congress and former President Joe Biden approved a 15% pay raise for junior enlisted personnel that will boost the income of the service members least likely to be able to afford off-base housing, she said.
Strickland has co-sponsored legislation to increase the housing allowance for service members who live off base. She and Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, have also introduced legislation that would create a low-income housing tax credit for developers of residential buildings within 15 miles of major military installations.
“We need more housing at bases and in the communities around bases,” Stickland said. “This has to be an all-hands-on-deck effort.”
