Secretary of Army Ryan McCarthy answered questions regarding military family housing at a House Armed Services Committee budget hearing on Tuesday.

In particular Rep. Chrissy Houlahan questioned McCarthy on the service’s plan to increase personnel while decreasing the budget for housing by $62 million, as well as military construction (MilCon) by $810 million. “How do you reconcile the difference where you’d like to increase the number of billets but you’re decreasing the ways your supporting them?” asked Houlahan.

McCarthy responded by outlining the Army’s need to recapitalize about a third its housing, as well as looking into demolition of some of the service’s outdated structures, “It would require north of $10 billion to essentially recapitalize the homes across the Army,” McCarthy said. Due to the “astronomical” of cost recapitalization, he said that the service will be looking towards private industry as a potential solution for recapitalization. McCarthy also explained that part of the housing budget decrease is attributed to housing demolition.

Photo by Sgt. Dana Clarke