Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo Thursday launching a task force to improve living conditions in barracks across the military. In the memo, he wrote, “Quality of life for our Warriors is a critical component to reviving our warrior ethos and rebuilding our military.”
He’s giving the task force 30 days to deliver a barracks improvement plan.
The defense secretary announced the task force earlier this week in a visit to Naval Air Station Oceana.
“It is simply unacceptable that in some cases, our warriors continue to live in substandard housing. Every warfighter of our joint force deserves housing that is clean, comfortable, and safe,” Hegseth said.
He referenced a 2023 Government Accountability Report that included pictures of the filthy conditions at some of the barracks and said “poor living conditions undermine quality of life and readiness” of the U.S. military.
It was that report that led Rob Evans, an Army veteran, to create the app Hots&Cots to allow service members to anonymously rate and post photos of the conditions in their barracks.
“There are some great installations to be at and there are ones you don’t necessarily wanna be at,” Evans said in an interview with CBS News. “And you know, there’s no tools to understand what those conditions are like. And that was the driving force of creating Hots&Cots.”
As for what service members expect of the task force, Evans said that “it’s more than just the mold and like the HVAC — those are the issues, but it’s also the system in and of itself is broken. They don’t trust the system.”
Hots&Cots received a call from a member of the Barracks Task Force to see how the app’s mission could fit into the effort to improve living conditions for the military, according to a post on the Hots&Cots X account Thursday.
Addressing concerns about conditions in barracks has been a problem plaguing several administrations. The GAO report found the Defense Department’s budget placesbarracks low on the list of its priorities and says they “are chronically neglected and experience increased deterioration.”
The Trump administration earlier this year diverted money from barrack construction to the southwest border mission, according to reporting from Military.com. The reconciliation bill passed over the summer includes about $1 billion for construction across the military branches.
CBS News reported in 2022 on mold-infested barracks at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, that forced the temporary relocation of over 1,100 soldiers. Since then, the Army has demolished many of the barracks and upgraded those remaining to make them suitable for unaccompanied soldiers to live in.
Soldiers who participated in a survey for tenants in unaccompanied housing are overall not satisfied with barracks conditions. The survey had a small response rate, but it was the first time the annual tenant survey included a section for unaccompanied soldiers to rate barracks.
Out of 715 unaccompanied housing buildings that had surveys returned, 43% of buildings rated in the “Outstanding,” “Very Good,” “Good,” “Average” for overall satisfaction, while a majority, 58% of buildings rated “below average” or lower.
One soldier who lives in barracks on an Army installation in a southern state told CBS News that if the Pentagon follows through on the task force, it “will probably be the best people-first initiative that the Army has ever seen since I’ve been in the Army.”
“I’m really hoping that this is not the same thing where it’s, hey, we are going to say that we’re gonna throw a bunch of money at this, we’re gonna say that we’re gonna take this seriously, but then we’re gonna kick this can down the road for a later time,” the soldier said.
“I think that it’s time that we treat soldiers like they’re people.”
