Fact Sheets

ABOUT THE RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE (RCI)

Program Overview

• The Residential Communities Initiative (RCI) is dedicated to building quality residential communities for Soldiers and their families.
• The program provides long-term, quality, sustainable housing where Soldiers train, mobilize and deploy.
• RCI supports the Army’s flagship installations and provides support to Army families around the Nation.
• In summer 2007, the Army grew closer to fulfilling its vision of eliminating inadequate family housing, having constructed more than 10,000 new homes and completing renovations on an additional 10,000-plus.
• To date, 28 projects have been completed and seven have either been awarded, are in solicitation or are under development.

 
Key Facts

• RCI promotes and receives excellent participation from local and disadvantaged builders, property management companies and housing organizations of all sizes. As of June 30, 2007, 63.5 percent or $1.97 billion of all RCI project subcontracts have gone to small and disadvantaged businesses.
• The program currently plans to include projects at 45 installations with a projected end state of 88,045 homes, 97 percent of the on-post inventory in the U.S.
• As of September 1, 2007, the Army has privatized family housing at 36 installations with a goal of 78,789 homes.
• The initial development scope at these sites is estimated at $10.4 billion, of which the Army contributes $1.3 billion.

 
Importance to Soldiers and Families

• The U.S. Army is committed to providing Soldiers and their families with quality residential communities. Providing modern, comfortable and safe homes and residential communities is important in providing the sense of well-being necessary to allow Soldiers to focus on their missions.
• Realizing the need for on-post accommodations for senior non-commissioned officers (NCO) and officers at locations where off-post rentals are not available, the Army instituted Unaccompanied Senior Single Soldier Housing Privatization at five locations, resulting in more than 1,300 apartments.

 
Privatization & U.S. Army Housing

• RCI is a critical component of the Army’s effort to eliminate inadequate housing in the U.S. through public-private partnerships.
• In 1996, Congress provided the military services with authority to obtain private sector capital and expertise to construct, improve and sustain military housing.
• The program conveys existing housing and leases the underlying ground for a 50-year term to a qualified development partner.
• The partner collects rent from Soldiers and their families equal to the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH).
• The Army may make an equity contribution when necessary to ensure adequate funds for the required scope of work.
• The Army is the limited partner in these projects. The private partner takes the day-to-day management responsibilities for the family housing and assumes the business risk for the project’s financial performance - success is based on providing adequate housing to Soldiers and families.
• Privatization allows the Army to leverage funds and assets to obtain private sector capital/expertise to operate, sustain, renovate and construct housing over the long term.
• The Army has developed an RCI Portfolio and Asset Management (PAM) program to monitor performance, compliance and financial health of projects over the next 50 years. PAM also surfaces project enhancements for implementation across the entire portfolio.