23% of Army Barracks Rated 'Poor and Failing' While $137B Repair Backlog Grows

Nearly one in four Army barracks buildings -- 23% of 6,700 facilities -- are classified as 'poor and failing condition,' housing junior enlisted service members in buildings plagued by mold, rodent infestations, sewage overflows, inoperable fire alarms, broken HVAC systems, and structural deterioration. A Congressional Budget Office report estimated the military-wide deferred maintenance backlog for buildings at approximately $50 billion in 2020, and broader federal building maintenance backlogs (including DoD) more than doubled from $171 billion to $370 billion between fiscal years 2017 and 2024. Years of underfunding have created an estimated $137 billion backlog in needed barracks repairs alone. The people living in these conditions are the youngest and most junior members of the military -- 18- to 22-year-olds who are required to live in barracks and have no option to move off-base. An E-2 making $24,000/year cannot opt out of a rodent-infested room. They file a work order, wait weeks for a response, and are told there are no spare parts or no available maintenance staff. Meanwhile, the same service members are expected to maintain equipment, pass physical fitness standards, and deploy on short notice. The disconnect between the standards the military demands of its people and the standards it accepts for their living conditions is corrosive to morale and retention. The Marine Corps found that 17,000 Marines were living in substandard barracks and launched 'Barracks 2030,' a multi-year renovation effort. As of mid-2025, the Corps had refurbished 11 of its 109 barracks buildings -- improving conditions for about 4,200 Marines. At that pace, completing the remaining 98 buildings would take over 40 years, well past the initiative's 2030 target. The Pentagon issued a new 'zero visible mold' standard for unaccompanied housing in 2024, but standards without funding and staffing are aspirational documents, not solutions. The structural problem is chronic underinvestment. Military construction (MILCON) funding competes with weapons systems, operations, and personnel costs in annual defense budgets. Barracks maintenance is not politically glamorous -- no member of Congress holds a ribbon-cutting for a repaired sewage line. The result is that maintenance gets deferred year after year, compounding the backlog exponentially. What could have been a $5,000 HVAC repair in 2015 becomes a $50,000 system replacement in 2025 because the building's ductwork corroded from years of moisture infiltration that was never addressed. At Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), the Directorate of Public Works had a backlog of 169 work orders, with parts shortages -- especially for custom HVAC and electrical components -- as the leading cause. At Randolph AFB, staff acknowledged they could not physically review all 1,345 work orders completed in 2024. One installation had only two individuals responsible for supervising 925 homes. The system is not failing because people do not care -- it is failing because it is structurally incapable of maintaining the volume of aging infrastructure it is responsible for.