Summary: About two-thirds of the married and one-third of the single servicemembers in the United States live in private housing in the communities surrounding military bases. These members are given a cash allowance to help defray the cost of renting or buying housing. In fiscal year 2000, housing allowances totaled about $6 billion and covered about 81 percent of the typical member's housing and utility costs, with the member paying the remaining costs out-of-pocket. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998 required the Department of Defense (DOD) to better match the allowance rates with actual housing costs in various parts of the country. It was expected that the changes would cause some rates to rise and others to decline. As of January 2000, however, rate decreases outnumbered the increases. In some cases, these rate decreases were substantial. DOD quickly took steps to address the concerns about the new housing rates and to improve the process used to set allowance rates for 2001. However, because DOD does not routinely provide detailed feedback to installation officials explaining the basis for the rates for their areas, these officials lack confidence that the process is accurate and cannot adequately answer members' questions about how their allowance rates were determined. Without a clear understanding of the basis for their allowance rates, servicemembers can lose trust in the rate development process.
