National Guard Awards $292 Million to Move Trump's D.C. Troops Out of Hotels and Into Apartments

The National Guard Bureau, the District of Columbia National Guard and the General Services Administration awarded the apartment-hotel company Placemakr $292 million on July 24, 2026 to provide up to 2,000 apartment-style lodging units for troops assigned to the Joint Task Force-District of Columbia mission. The Guard described it as the largest interagency lodging acquisition in its history and said the acquisition was completed in under three months despite an agency-level vendor protest that was reviewed and denied. Troops mobilized for the mission, which began in August 2025 under the administration's 'Making D.C. Safe and Beautiful' executive order, had been staying in hotels around the region. The Guard and GSA put the pricing at about 49% below projected short-term commercial hotel costs.

The contract converts what was announced as a response to a crime emergency into a standing housing arrangement, embedding the cost of a domestic military deployment in long-term leases of civilian apartments in the city the troops are policing.

A May 28 report by the Niskanen Center found the deployment had 'no measurable effect on violent crime,' citing an average daily cost of $607 per Guard member against $384 in pay for a Metropolitan Police Department officer, while noting a 24% decline in opportunistic property crime in the operation's first six months.