BASIC ALLOWANCE FOR HOUSING RESOURCE ALLOCATION: A DEPENDENT-BASED MODEL
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Authors
Chamberlain, Aaron J.
Subjects
basic allowance for housing
BAH
servicemember finances
housing
military families
retention
BAH
servicemember finances
housing
military families
retention
Advisors
Yoshida, Ruriko
Date of Issue
2023-06
Date
Publisher
Monterey, CA; Naval Postgraduate School
Language
Abstract
Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is intended to cover 95 percent of a service member's housing costs, including rent and utilities. However, our research indicates that the assigned BAH at 35 percent of military sites is below the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) standards for adequacy. Furthermore, we found that the shortages and surpluses are normally distributed with a mean above zero. This finding implies that most sites experience a surplus, and that by bringing the tails closer to the mean, the problem could be alleviated. In this work, we focus on E4-and-below service members and we develop a dependent-based model to optimize BAH, maximizing the BAH over the rates set by HUD as standards of adequacy. The basic assertion is that service members should be able to afford housing at a standard that meets at least HUD levels of adequacy, and exceeds those standards if budgetary constraints allow for it. The data leveraged in this research suggests that this is very attainable, given some reasonable changes to the current BAH calculation methodology.
Type
Thesis
Description
Series/Report No
Department
Operations Research (OR)
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Distribution Statement
Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.