National Guard members stationed in Washington, D.C. will move into apartment-style short-term housing, the National Guard and the Trump Administration announced Friday afternoon.
The National Guard and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a nearly $300 million contract to Placemakr, a flexible real estate company that specializes in short-term housing.
The task order between the government and Placemakr will “provide up to 2,000 apartment-style lodging units for Guardsmen mobilized to support Joint Task Force – District of Columbia,” according to a news release about the contract.
It is “the largest interagency lodging acquisition in National Guard history,” according to the release.
The short-term housing units will house the National Guard troops instead of the hotel rooms around the region that the National Guard has been using since the troops were deployed to D.C. last September.
The GSA says the $292 million Placemakr contract will cost the government half as much as the hotels.
“In addition to financial benefits, the apartment-style accommodation provides deployed personnel with more stable living conditions, improved privacy and quality of life and access to secure parking and consolidated support services,” the release says.
The deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to the District is now expected to last through the end of President Donald Trump’s second term, despite the objections of some local leaders.
A group of researchers who found the Guard had no measurable impact on violent crime, homicides or gun crimes also found that keeping troops in D.C. through early 2029 could push the cost of deployment toward $4 billion.
More than $1.7 billion of that cost to taxpayers is just through the end of 2026, based on congressional estimates before the Placemakr contract was announced, the Center for American Progress said.
“This is ineffective,” said Chandler Hall, who wrote the study. “This is not doing anything to make people safer, and yet it’s costing taxpayers billions of dollars.”
Some D.C. leaders, including Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, have said repeatedly that they want out-of-state Guard troops removed from the District. A lawsuit from D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb challenging the deployment is still working through appeals.
