Pros to Living on Base:
Quality Military Housing
Quality housing helps the Department of Defense (DoD) retain the best personnel for its all-volunteer military force. The proportion of personnel remaining in service from bases with high-quality housing is about 15 percent higher than for those stationed at places with low-quality housing. Today's servicemembers want to live in a community that offers stability and continuity as a backdrop for deployment, reassignment, and day-to-day life.
Basic Allowance for Housing
Servicemembers living on or off base in private-sector/community housing, or in "military privatized housing," are entitled to a basic allowance for housing (BAH). BAH provides military families accurate and equitable housing compensation based on housing costs in local civilian housing markets. BAH is a critical ingredient that provides the income stream to support initial and long-term financial viability and security.
A Welcoming Military Community
When you move to your new military installation, you’ll have a tight-knit military community ready to welcome you and your family with open arms. You may not have as much privacy as you wish, with your spouse’s CO and company members living next door or right around the corner. However, you’ll have spouses nearby who are ready to help you get settled into your new environment.
DoD Offers Housing when Private Sector Can Not
DoD provides military housing in areas where private-sector housing falls short — considering cost, commuting area, and other established criteria. In these cases, it operates barracks for unaccompanied personnel, military family housing for members with dependents, and temporary lodging for military families who are changing stations or on temporary duty.
Cons to Living on Base:
Unaccompanied Housing Quarters
Single junior-enlisted servicemembers are required to live in barracks, where they share a room with at least one other person and with a communal bathroom and a telephone down the hall. About half a million single servicemembers live in these quarters, which are often substandard, inadequately maintained, or obsolete.
The Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC)
BRAC is an initiative that closes certain military bases that are deemed no longer necessary. And, as a result, many military families will have to relocate to other military bases. The latest round of BRAC closures in 2005, displaced a significant amount of military families, who were then relocated to other installations based on the military’s need.
