Home improvement

Liberty Military Housing is renovating hundreds of single-family homes and townhomes for Navy families in several Virginia Beach and Norfolk military housing communities, with $120 million

in refurbishments that began in 2023 and are scheduled to be completed in 2026.

The upgrades range from replacing siding and roofing to updating kitchens and bathrooms to tearing down outdated homes, which Liberty will replace by building new houses.

No military families are being displaced during the renovations, and Liberty is not building additional housing. The homes that are being knocked down are unoccupied, says John Corriher, Liberty’s mid-Atlantic Navy/Marines regional vice president.

The military housing Liberty is renovating — and manages — is on federal land, according to a Liberty spokesperson.

The company is providing renovations and upgrades that military families asked for during open house gatherings, which members of Liberty’s construction and leasing teams held at four prototype homes in different communities. The company invited current residents, Navy commands and Liberty’s Navy partners.

Liberty representatives conducted a walk-through of each prototype home, showing military families every aspect of the dwelling, then asked them complete an online survey to provide feedback on what refurbishments they wanted and needed, Corriher says.

The feedback is driving the renovations. For example, many families with small children said they didn’t like carpeting, because frequent spills were difficult to clean. Liberty is replacing carpeting with wooden plank flooring.

“When the Kool-Aid spills, they can just wipe it up,” Corriher explains.

Some families also said they didn’t like pedestal sinks in the bathroom, which have no storage space beneath the basin. For the homes where bathrooms were being upgraded, Liberty used conventional sinks that have storage space underneath.

“We’re making upgrades and renovations that resonate with the families,” Corriher says.

The upgrades that have been completed include 1,426 roof replacements; 1,112 home siding renovations; 1,056 fences upgraded, with wood replaced with new PVC material; 290 bathroom renovations; 145 kitchen renovations; and 16 playgrounds updated with new equipment.

All homes in the Sandpiper Crescent neighborhood of Virginia Beach are being torn down and replaced with new construction. Liberty is also conducting major interior and exterior renovations of homes in the Shelton Circle, Gela Point and Wadsworth Shores multifamily communities in Virginia Beach, as well as interior renovations in the communities of Norwich Manor, Queens Way and Castle Acres in Norfolk.

The renovations are having an immediate positive impact, as Liberty is hiring local contractors to do the refurbishments, knock down housing and build new homes. The money they earn boosts the local economy, Corriher says.

While many childless service members live in barracks on military bases, about 700,000 military service members and their family members live in privatized military housing nationwide, according to the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group that published a national investigation into military housing in May with Mother Jones.

In recent years, investigations like these have revealed an array of problems with military family housing, including mold, pest infestations and difficulty getting these problems resolved.

The POGO-Mother Jones investigation brought to light examples of unresponsiveness, incompetence and even deception by some military housing outfits regarding work orders and maintenance of their homes. These revelations led to calls on Capitol Hill and by advocates for military families for improvements and accountability for military officials overseeing housing.

In at least one instance within the last few years, such deception was criminal. In 2021, Balfour Beatty Communities — described by the U.S. Justice Department as one of the largest providers of privatized military housing to the U.S. military — pleaded guilty to one count of major fraud against the U.S., agreeing to pay more
than $33.6 million in criminal fines and $31.8 million in restitution to the U.S. military, along with other measures.

“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 Monaco said in a statement.

Reports in recent years of problems with family military housing prompted U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine to push for reforms. Thanks to the efforts of Kaine and other elected officials, Congress provided additional protections for military families in the fiscal 2020 and 2021 National Defense Authorization Acts.

Those pieces of legislation created a Tenant Bill of Rights for service members living in family military housing and boosted accountability for military commanders regarding conditions in such housing.

Referring to Liberty, “I’m very happy that they are doing this,” says Kaine, a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. In the 1990s, the Pentagon signed contracts with several other companies to provide housing for enlisted members, but it did a poor job of managing the program, Kaine says.

“Our goal is to continue to push the military and private housing providers to continue to do a better job responding to the concerns of military families,” he says.