Rep. Sara Jacobs, Sen. Elizabeth Warren Introduce Bipartisan, Bicameral Bill to Improve Privatized Military Housing
Rep. Sara Jacobs (CA-51) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced bipartisan and bicameral legislation to improve the quality of privatized military housing. The Military Housing Oversight and Service Member Protection Act would overhaul the privatized military housing system by increasing oversight, requiring further transparency, establishing tenant protections, providing appropriate medical care, and strengthening ethics requirements.
“Our military families sacrifice so much for us – and the least we can do is ensure their housing is clean, safe, affordable, and meets their needs,” said Congresswoman Sara Jacobs. “While we’ve made progress in addressing inadequate housing across the country, we still have more work ahead to conduct necessary oversight, protect and empower tenants, and demand accountability for unacceptable conditions. Our military families deserve the best – and that’s why I’m proud to introduce the Military Housing Oversight and Service Member Protection Act to deliver comprehensive reform to our privatized military housing system that often overlooks landlords’ negligence and silences military families.”
“The Department of Defense owes a responsibility to our servicemembers to provide them and their families with safe and sanitary housing,” said Senator Warren. “This bill will fundamentally reform a broken system and hold private housing providers accountable for their shameful failures.”
“It is well past time to increase, stabilize, and regulate the housing supply available for servicemembers,” said Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland (WA-10). “My district alone is home to over 40,000 active-duty service members and their families who deserve to be securely housed.”
Rep. Jim Moylan said, “I am happy to announce that our office is co-leading with Rep. Jacobs the Military Housing & Service Member Protection Act. This act focuses on Increased oversight, Transparency, Tenant Protections, Medical care provisions, and a commitment to ethical practices. Our Warfighters deserve the BEST conditions when away from their appointed places of duty and our office is FULLY committed to ensuring this is realized. I will continue to work with congressional leadership to champion our service members quality of life both now, and always! Lastly… Go Army, beat Navy, HOOAH!”
This legislation builds on the progress made by the bipartisan Military Housing Readiness Council Act, which Rep. Sara Jacobs and Sen. Elizabeth Warren passed into law last year. That law created a working group to monitor privatized military housing to ensure all military families have access to safe, quality housing.
###