Hunt Military Communities CEO Brian Stann said the company is within two months of finalizing a deal to take over the barracks at five locations around Hampton Roads. The deal includes tearing down aging facilities and building new housing, including for sailors at Newport News Shipbuilding.
The Navy first announced the project to WHRO in 2024. The company originally expected to finalize a deal last year. Roughly $400 million for the Navy’s share of the project was included in the defense bill passed in December. Hunt is in the final stages of securing a $1.4 billion in bonds to finance the rest of the project. Under the deal, the Navy will turn over existing barracks to the company, Stann said.
“Upon closing of this deal, the Navy will convey multiple facilities as part of this that will then go under renovation so they can be brought up to the same standard as the rest of these units across the project,” he said.
New construction and rehabilitation of the existing buildings would begin this year and run through 2031, Stann said.
In 2024, then Chief of Naval Operations, Adml. Lisa Franchetti released a plan to have all sailors living on board ship involuntarily moved to shore when they are in port, by 2027. The Navy concluded that forcing sailors to live on ships, even after they return from long deployments, was a major quality of life issue for young sailors. Poor living conditions for sailors assigned to ships in long maintenance cycles contributed to the Navy’s high suicide rate.
To free more space in the barracks for younger sailors, the Navy has given Basic Allowance for Housing to sailors at the E4 level so they can live in the community. Young sailors typically are required to live on base, unless they are married, Stann said.
Hunt already operates Homeport Hampton Roads, which is a dormitory-style barracks complex at Naval Station Norfolk. The new deal would give the company control over 8,000 beds in Hampton Roads, which would make it the largest privatization of housing for junior troops in the military.
“What we're doing with this expansion of Homeport Hampton Roads is a proof of concept, and there'll be a lot of eyeballs on how this goes and as an example of what they might want to do,” Stann said.
During the Biden administration the Navy, Air Force and Army began looking at large privatization projects. The Trump administration seems to be even more interested in privatizing housing for young troops, he said.
The Marine Corps has rejected privatization. Leaders have worried about the potential loss of control.
The military privatized family housing in the 1990s, as a way to clear the backlog of aging buildings and maintenance issues. In the last decade, troops and their families raised increasing concerns about mold, pests and other substandard conditions at the private companies, including Hunt. The outcry moved Congress and the services to act, leading to reforms such as a tenant bill of rights for military housing.
A Department of Defense Inspector General report released in September reviewed Hunt properties at seven locations. Inspectors found that the military housing offices at those locations still did not have adequate staff or resources to properly monitor the private contractor.
