Vehicles jam the parking lot of the near-empty post exchange on Fort Shafter, Hawaii, Feb. 17, 2026. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii — Judging by its jam-packed parking lot, the post exchange on Fort Shafter in Hawaii appears to be doing bang-up trade.
On any given weekday morning, every parking spot is filled, with other vehicles wedged pell-mell onto curbs and in lanes. Inside the exchange, however, customers are typically few.
The phantom vehicles belong to soldiers assigned to units adjacent to the exchange that have surged in personnel in recent months and now have no parking space to accommodate them.
“Parking has become a nightmare at Fort Shafter,” Col. Rachel Sullivan, commander of Army Garrison Hawaii, said Feb. 11 at her headquarters at Wheeler Army Airfield.
But surge-related parking woes are a small annoyance compared to the strain on barracks on Oahu, where soldiers are now doubling up in rooms and on-post family housing that has reached almost 100% occupancy.
The incoming troops represent the military’s long-promised “pivot to the Pacific” and the result of the Army’s updated manning structure for 2027 to 2031, Sullivan said.
“I think it’s a shift that’s been a long time coming but that has just been really finally realized here recently,” she said.
“There were a lot of structure changes for units here in the Pacific and specifically here in Hawaii,” she said.
Changes that typically take four or five years are now greatly accelerated, she said. So instead of another 2,000 personnel arriving over five years, almost 90% will arrive before the end of this year, according to Sullivan.
The most pressing challenge is where to house so many extra soldiers and their families.
Last month, leaders of the garrison and the 25th Infantry Division at a town hall meeting on Schofield Barracks addressed concerns over the requirement that some soldiers double up in barracks rooms.
Some soldiers have complained about security, overflowing dumpsters, insufficient laundry facilities and a dearth of parking as barracks’ populations boom.
The garrison has 48 “permanent party” barracks, almost all in central Oahu on Schofield and Wheeler. Three are on Shafter in Honolulu, and one is at nearby Tripler Army Medical Center.
Those barracks provide just over 6,000 bed spaces without doubling up, according to Sullivan.
“Right now, we have roughly 500 soldiers that are in what we are calling surge beds, so a bed that has been placed in a room with another soldier,” she said.
Plans are in place to build four new barracks on Schofield — one anticipated to begin construction next year, with three others still in the design stage, she said.
“We’re trying to actually accelerate everything because of this crunch,” she said.
On-post family housing is also running short.
“We are sitting right now at 98% occupancy of our family housing, which is unprecedented,” she said. “When I first took command a little over 18 months ago, we were sitting at just over 90% occupancy.”
Affordable housing in the state is Hawaii Gov. Josh Green’s top concern. He and the congressional delegation have been urging military branches on Oahu to house more of their personnel on post.
“We are very cognizant of the fact that every single Army family that is taking their [basic allowance for housing] off post is competing for that same affordable housing that every other family here in Hawaii is trying to occupy,” Sullivan said.
