# The FORCE Act: What It Does

This bill requires the Department of Defense to take a closer look at the quality of housing for single military members stationed overseas and report back to Congress about what they find. Right now, the military has barracks and housing facilities all around the world where unmarried service members live, but there's no comprehensive system checking whether these places are actually safe and livable. Congress discovered through a recent government audit that even domestic military barracks have serious problems—mold, pest infestations, broken plumbing, and other hazards—but nobody had actually surveyed the overseas facilities to see if they have similar issues.

The bill asks the Secretary of Defense to spend the next six months evaluating all overseas military housing using a standardized checklist that was created in a previous law. The report needs to explain what condition these facilities are actually in, whether they meet basic habitability standards (things like clean water, working heat, safe structures), and how much money would be needed to fix any problems. The report also has to assess whether poor housing conditions are affecting military readiness and combat capability, broken down by region.

Essentially, this is about accountability and visibility. Service members deserve to know that the places where they sleep and live meet basic safety standards, and Congress wants concrete information about whether that's happening overseas. The bill doesn't directly fix any housing problems or allocate money to repair them—it's a fact-finding mission that will give Congress the information they need to make decisions about military housing in the future. For military families and service members stationed abroad, this could lead to improvements if the report reveals serious problems that Congress then decides to address.

FORCE Act

Kiggans, Jennifer A.

Foreign Overseas Residence Conditions Enhancement Act or the FORCE Act This bill requires the Department of Defense to report on the quality of all military unaccompanied housing not located in the United States (i.e., government-owned military housing that is intended to be occupied by members of the Armed Forces serving a tour of duty unaccompanied by dependents).