JBER offers many housing resources

  • Published
  • By JBER Housing Offices
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  The Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson Housing Welcome centers are reminding service members there is an internet-based housing referral system. It's the Automated Housing Referral Network. AHRN.com is a nationwide, joint service, DoD-sponsored website that offers information on available housing to incoming military and their families. The service directly connects service members with local property managers via the Internet often facilitating a door-to-door move that saves time, and expenses.
"This housing referral network is a quantum leap forward from the process we use in our office and the word-of-mouth referral method," said Richard Watson, JBER Housing Management Support chief. With the Internet, incoming military and families are able to reach out from anywhere and get an updated list of available housing, from a much larger pool of diverse properties, that will be available upon their arrival.

The idea behind AHRN.com is simple: local property managers and homeowners register their available properties on the site free of charge, often several months before the property will be available.

These properties are then easily visible to incoming personnel when they search the site for available housing. JBER Housing Welcome Centers are looking forward to expanding the program by encouraging local property managers to register in the system.

To make registering properties a worry-free proposition, there are several layers of privacy protection. In return for registering their properties, AHRN.com provides property owners with a consistent resource of quality tenants. "It's a win-win for everyone who uses the site," Watson said.

In addition to AHRN.com, JBER Housing Centers provide programs to assist service members in acquiring a place to live once they PCS to their installations.

One such program is the JBER-Elmendorf Rental Partnership Program which is available to all eligible active duty members. The benefits of this program are discounts and no deposits or fees with the exception of pet deposits. JBER-Richardson Housing offers the Preferred Tenant Program which provides active-duty military personnel, both enlisted and officers, accompanied and unaccompanied, with affordable off-base housing.

In addition to corporate apartment complexes, the Preferred Tenant Program offers single family homes, townhomes and condos of private owners. Private owners need only contact the JBER-Richardson Housing Office to request acceptance in the program.
Rental payments for all programs are made directly to the landlord through allotments set up by both housing offices resulting in more trouble free transactions.
For more information call 552-4328/4374 or 384-3088/7632.