Congressman Jimmy Patronis introduced legislation Thursday aimed at improving military housing by removing bureaucratic barriers and protecting servicemembers from being silenced about housing problems.
- The Housing Our Military Effectively For Readiness, Operations, and Neutralization of Threats Act of 2025, or HOMEFRONT Act, would exempt military family housing and unaccompanied housing from the National Historic Preservation Act at the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. The bill also prohibits predatory nondisclosure agreements that have prevented troops from sharing housing concerns, according to Patronis’ office.
“Our heroes in uniform and their families deserve modern, safe, and dignified housing without bureaucratic hurdles or agreements silencing their concerns,” Patronis said. “First, it’s unconscionable we would subject a military family to an NDA requirement. Second, just because a facility is old, does not make it historic.”
According to Patronis’ office, the Department of Defense has spent nearly $28 billion on privatized military housing since the mid-1990s after determining that nearly two-thirds of its 180,000 domestic family housing inventory needed repair, was inadequate, or required complete replacement.
Under current rules, once a property has been determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, the DOD must manage the property to the same standards as structures actually listed in the Register, according to the congressman’s office.
- This requirement “traps military families in unsafe homes that may contain toxic materials such as lead-based paint and asbestos, limits building materials that may be used, delays repairs, and drives up maintenance costs,” according to Patronis.
About one-third of the Army’s homes are more than 50 years old, according to Patronis’ office. Updating just 10,000 of them to meet historic rules would cost more than $820 million.
Patronis said preserving a large inventory of properties to historic standards is financially unsustainable and contradicts both the President’s and Secretary of Defense’s priorities while representing a threat to retention and readiness.
“The HOMEFRONT Act cuts more red tape, preserves our history, but more importantly, provides the Secretary of Defense additional authority to ensure our servicemembers don’t live in substandard conditions,” Patronis said. “President Trump is making our military strong again, and I believe that effort should include providing service members the legal right to refuse nondisclosure agreements and ensure their families have adequate housing.”
