A first-of-its-kind survey aims to capture military families’ experiences in privatized housing.
The Change the Air Foundation recently launched the Safe Military Housing Survey — one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to collect data the Defense Department has never been able to track accurately. The results will help inform Congress and DoD about what families across all branches and ranks are actually experiencing in military housing.
“It’s a survey that is created by families, for families. We have created this based off of what we would want in a survey,” Jackie Talarico, a military spouse, told Federal News Network.
For decades, service members and their families have been exposed to hazardous conditions in privatized military housing. Across the country, military families are dealing with black mold, contaminated water, asbestos in ceilings and lead in walls. Families report developing a host of health issues that did not exist before moving into military housing.
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Erica Thompson, a military spouse and the military families’ liaison for the Change the Air Foundation, lived in military housing for 10 months at Maxwell Air Force Base located in Montgomery, Alabama, where she says her family experienced “catastrophic issues and life-changing diagnoses” affecting all five of their children.
“It was at that point that we realized it wasn’t an isolated issue with the base we were on. It was a nationwide issue, and we started connecting with families nationwide and that’s when we partnered with Change the Air Foundation,” Thompson said.
Currently, one in nine military children is diagnosed with complex medical conditions by age 5, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics journal. That is compared with just one in 100 among civilian children.
“It really makes your mind wonder what is going on and how is this happening?” Talarico said.
Talarico, a Navy spouse and mother of two young children, lived for several years in privatized military housing managed by Balfour Beatty Communities — one of the largest military housing contractors — while her husband was stationed at Naval Air Station Key West in Florida.
While there, Talarico said her family was constantly reassured by everyone — from local management and maintenance staff to Balfour Beatty’s senior executives — that their home did not contain any lead, asbestos or mold.
When they moved in, the company provided an asbestos addendum stating that asbestos was limited to the area underneath the windowsills. But after the ceiling began to collapse and multiple rounds of mold remediation, the family found out “it was a lie.” According to the Justice Department, internal company records, which Talarico said residents were denied access to, later revealed far more asbestos in the home than Balfour Beatty had disclosed at move-in.
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“Balfour Beatty lied to us … Unfortunately, families are being exposed to domestic toxins in their military-provided homes due to companies like Balfour Beatty that are continuing to put greed above all of our lives, health and safety, and we’re just being poisoned in a place that’s supposed to be our safe place,” Talarico said.
“Throughout the last three years, we’ve endured ceilings caving in, endless leaks, multiple remediation. We lived in temporary homes and in hotels and on air mattresses with our children and our dog. I was forced to quit my job. We threw almost everything we own to the curb to ensure it wouldn’t continue to poison our family. We were forced to have our family separated due to housing struggles and not duty calling, all while fighting repetitive illnesses and ailments, behavioral and developmental delays, autism concerns and endless vomiting spells and nosebleeds, all on top of the regular sacrifices my husband and our family make every day as a military family,” she added.
Balfour Beatty Communities pleaded guilty to one count of major fraud and agreed to pay roughly $65 million in penalties and restitution in 2021.
“Instead of promptly repairing housing for U.S. service members as required, BBC lied about the repairs to pocket millions of dollars in performance bonuses,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said at the time.
“It’s time to make a real move, because clearly, the fine on a multi-billion-dollar international company was not enough to say, ‘No more harming our families.’ They are continuing to do it and make a mockery of our service members and their families, and now, in turn, they’re harming the next generation. You have families that have served for generations, and now you have a military child that is now medically disqualified from joining the military because of their military provided home. We have to say no more, and it’s time for action,” Talarico said.
Nearly all military family housing in the United States — about 99% — is owned and managed by private companies.
The Change the Air Foundation survey plays a critical role in giving the Defense Department leadership and members of Congress accurate, firsthand data from military families.
“We just want to make sure we are providing a safe space and somewhere that is unfiltered, and it is getting in the right hands of our people and for our people,” Talarico said.
Respondents are asked whether they received a seven-year history report for their home, what specific issues they’ve experienced — such as mold, water contamination or pest infestations — and how maintenance teams responded to those issues. The survey also explores the financial and emotional toll on families, including whether they had to pay out of pocket for repairs, relocate or were stuck in the home with no options to resolve the issue. It asks if service calls were marked complete before problems were fixed, whether the same issue had to be reported multiple times and if tenants were ever asked to sign non-disclosure or settlement agreements.
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The goal is to gather 5,000 survey responses by Oct. 23 — so far, over 900 respondents have completed the survey.
“Five thousand complete responses really would give us a great scope, a picture as to what people are walking through, the real story of positive or negative experiences,” Thompson said.
NDAA housing amendments
Aside from the survey, Thompson and Talarico have also been advocating for several amendments to be included in the annual defense bill. Among the proposals is the Healthy at Home on Base Act, which would require the Defense Department to conduct a study on mold and its health impacts, both in military housing and barracks.
Another amendment, introduced by Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.), would require the Defense Department to adopt mold remediation standards across all barracks and family housing.
“That is extremely important, and my family is a testimony to that as well. Improper remediation is worse than no remediation at all, because you’re coming in and you’re disturbing those spores, which are now making them airborne,” Talarico said.
Another top priority is banning private military housing companies from imposing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) on tenants. Companies may request families to sign NDAs when resolving housing disputes and accepting a settlement offer, effectively silencing them from speaking about housing conditions.
Talarico said they are hoping some of the amendments will be attached to the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, including the NDA ban and the Healthy at Home on Base Act.
“We’re just saying no more. We want a call to action, and I think everyone’s starting to see the research, see the data, see this grassroot effort, and see us all coming together for one main purpose,” Talarico said.
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