Even as the Army's presence on O'ahu grows, a yearlong deployment to Iraq by more than 7,000 Schofield Barracks soldiers and progress with a massive housing improvement project are providing relief for what had been a military housing crunch, officials said.

"We had some struggles previously — last year with the mobilization of folks passing through Hawai'i for deployments to the theater, (and that) created some significant challenges for us," said Clyde Sage, the services and referral branch chief for the U.S. Army Garrison Hawai'i housing division.

Soldiers from American Samoa, Guam and California were temporarily housed on base at a time when most of the 25th Infantry Division also was at home.

Now, contractors are completing 35 new homes a month on the base as part of a $2.33 billion privatization venture. The plan is eventually to build 5,388 homes and renovate 2,506 others over a 10-year initial development period.

The first of 1,529 of those new homes at Aliamanu Military Reservation — one of five other locations the Army has housing — are expected to become available starting in 2007.

Ann Wharton, communications director for Army Hawai'i Family Housing, said there are 6,100 homes now in the housing mix with occupancy at about 90 percent, and the Army will have more than 6,700 homes available when soldiers return from Iraq next summer.

"It actually puts us in a great situation," she said. "We're going to have remodeled homes and new homes, and we'll be able to support all of (the soldiers) coming back in."

An expected fall 2007 deployment to Iraq by the 3,900-soldier Stryker brigade also would mean continued housing availability.

At the same time, the Army is in the midst of growth on O'ahu. In 2002, 17,000 soldiers were based here, Sage said. That number has grown to 18,000 now, and is anticipated to increase to 21,000 in three years as the Army modernizes and Hawai'i takes on a greater role as a forward launching point for military operations throughout Asia and the Pacific.

Up to 1,650 more troops are expected as part of a reorganization of U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter as a warfighting headquarters with rapidly deployable subcommands.

Of 18,000 soldiers in Hawai'i now, 9,000 require family housing, and the Army mandate is for 7,350 to live on post, Sage said. Others choose to live off base.

The military, realizing it couldn't build or renovate housing to desired standards fast enough at its posts around the country, turned to the private sector to build and maintain housing.

In 2005, the Defense Department entered into 53 privatization projects nationwide involving more than 111,000 family housing units.

The Army in Hawai'i and Napa, Calif.-based Actus Lend Lease have a 50-year partnership. A service member's housing allowance is used to manage and maintain homes and pay for new construction.

The project also includes Fort Shafter, Wheeler Army Air Field, Helemano Military Reservation, Tripler Army Medical Center and a Coast Guard housing area at Red Hill.

In the Kalakaua community at Schofield — being built on the former 1920s ironwood- and palm-lined golf course of the same name — 125 families live in new homes. By the end of the year, that number will be 190, Wharton said.

The Porter community is under construction and the first new homes are expected to begin to be available in January.

At the same time, Schofield is in the midst of a more than $802 million barracks renovation that began in 1995 and is expected to run through 2011.

The old "J" and "K" quads were demolished, others are being renovated, and new barracks are being built. More than 6,000 rooms are in the inventory, with occupancy less than 3,000 with the deployment. About 1,500 rooms are undergoing renovation, Sage said.

At almost every Army post, there is some wait for housing, but by the summer of 2007, when soldiers return from Iraq, "we'll be ahead of the pack," said Schofield spokesman Kendrick Washington.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com.