The Pentagon’s proposed $1.5 trillion budget for next fiscal year includes funding to fix longstanding problems with barracks, defense officials recently told reporters.
The budget calls for spending $57 billion on U.S. military bases and other facilities, a large portion of which would go toward addressing “critical updates” identified by the Pentagon’s barracks task force established by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a senior military official told reporters on Friday.
“These investments in this budget will fix all substandard barracks and eliminate barracks that have been deemed poor or failing,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under rules established by the Pentagon.
There’s an additional investment to improve family housing, with a major portion of this investment aimed at our government-owned housing facilities.”
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No information was immediately available on which projects the barracks task force has identified as most critical or how long the Defense Department expects it will take to fix the problems.
The proposal for the upcoming fiscal year’s budget represents a marked increase in funding for the barracks. For the 2026 fiscal year budget, the Defense Department requested $7.2 billion to improve barracks, according to budget documents. That breaks down to $1.2 billion for new construction and $6 billion for facilities sustainment, restoration, and modernization.
The goal to fix “all substandard barracks” is a lofty one. The U.S. military as a whole has long struggled to provide enlisted troops with clean and safe housing. In the past, money for barracks’ upkeep has been diverted to other projects deemed more pressing, a Marine Corps official told Task & Purpose in 2025.
A 2023 Government Accountability Office report identified numerous problems with barracks on 10 military installations, ranging from mold to infestations of cockroaches, bed bugs, rodents, and issues with sewage as well as water quality.
Hegseth announced in December that the Pentagon would immediately invest $400 million to improve dilapidated barracks, and another $800 million would be spent on “critical” renovations.
The Pentagon also recently required all military services to meet the same standards for barracks and other unaccompanied housing that are meant to replace previous “inconsistent” guidelines among the military branches, according to the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Housing.
In addition to paying for barracks repairs, the proposed defense budget for fiscal year 2027 also includes funding to continue increasing the overall size of the U.S. military, a senior Defense Department official said on Friday.
The move comes after this fiscal year’s National Defense Authorization Act funded an increase of more than 26,000 active duty service members.
Under the proposed budget for the next fiscal year, the military would add another 44,000 service members. It was not immediately clear if this increase would include active duty along with National Guard and Reserve service members.
The Pentagon is expected to provide a breakdown of these extra troops on Tuesday, the senior Defense Department official said.
When the U.S. military has shrunk in the past, service members have faced longer hours, more frequent deployments, and more stress on the force, the official said.
“This growth will provide the manpower we need to employ the new capabilities we’re buying, and will also improve readiness and quality of life by ensuring units are properly staffed for the missions we task them with,” the official said.
CORRECTION: 4.21.2026; This article was updated after publication to note that the portion of the budget allocated to base fixes is $57 billion. At a previous roundtable with reporters, the figure cited by officials was $37 billion — that was incorrect.
